It took 941 days for the Warriors to finally wait for the end of the first season of "Waiting for the God of Soup". On January 10, Beijing time, the Warriors and the Cavaliers fought, Klay Thompson made a perfect comeback, and "Waiting for the God of Soup" ended in a satisfactory form, while leaving suspense for the second season.
Now, "Waiting for The God of Soup" has entered its second season, and this season, the Warriors are waiting for Thompson to find his form. Like those classic American dramas that have been filmed for several seasons, this stage is still in the stage of ambushing the development of the plot of the new season. Thompson adjusts his playing style while looking for form, the Warriors enter a period of run-in pain, and both Thompson and the Warriors are going through a difficult time.
Thompson played four games after his comeback, making 56 shots and shooting just 35.7 percent from the field. Outside the three-point line, Thompson shot 10-of-28 and shot 35.7 percent from the field. Thompson has 33 percent of the ball and his true shooting percentage is less than 50 percent, which is clearly not Thompson's normal level. After a two-and-a-half-year suspension, Thompson needed time to adjust his physical and athletic form, which is understandable.
Judging from Thompson's performance after his comeback, the good sign is that Thompson did not neglect the polishing of technology during his recuperation, and he showed signs of transformation to increase the ball-holding offense. After 4 games, Thompson's face basket singles, blocking and dismantling the ball-holding attack, and back-to-back singles combined to exceed 22%.
You know, in any past season, Thompson has been a non-ball player with the ability to attack with the ball, but the offensive role of the ball is very low. In the 2018-19 season, Thompson's three possession offenses combined were less than 15%. In the 2015-16 season before Kevin Durant joined, Thompson's three possession offenses combined were less than 16%.
Thompson returned to the first game, he not only had a strong split with the ball, a single drift shot in the face of the basket, and a strong three-point shot in the block. Originally thought that Thompson attacked more with the ball to prove that he had fully recovered, and he would take more no-ball attacks in the following games, but from the perspective of the number of games after that, Thompson still had a large number of ball-holding attacks.
Taking today's Warriors and Timberwolves game as an example, Thompson dropped the ball in the opening position to receive the ball and singles athletic ability is far better than his Anthony Edwards, and as a result, Thompson turned back and jumped the golden rooster independent jump shot.
In the following games, Thompson also had several personal attacks with the ball, but the results were not very good, either the basket did not score, was covered, or was snatched by the opponent when breaking through.
Thompson's offense on the ball has increased, both because of his own active transformation and because of Draymond Green's passive reasons for his injury suspension. Barkley had asked Thompson in an exaggerated way why he dribbled more on his debut than he had dribbled in his entire career, when Thompson said, "I did a lot of one-on-one training to prepare for the comeback moment. Plus, Green wasn't there, and if he was in my job it would be a lot easier, I could go around him and play without a ball. When we're in line, you'll see me catch the ball and shoot, cut the attack. ”
For a player like Thompson, who has played a lifelong no-ball offense and has suffered two consecutive lower limb injuries, it is very rare for his career to adjust his playing style and perform more ball-holding offense at this stage of his career. Of course, as Thompson said, now he is helpless to attack with more balls. Over time, his no-ball offensive scenes will increase, and the proportion of possession offense will decrease.
On the one hand, Thompson's no-ball offense hasn't been fully recovered, with his offensive shooting percentage around cover only 35 percent and his conversion offense shooting percentage of just 22.2 percent. On the other hand, without Green, the cover and card master, many of the tactics that Thompson used to be familiar with could not be implemented in place, and Thompson and the warriors' new teammates had not yet chemically reacted. Because in the Warriors, Green's assists were many to Thompson, and in the 2017-18 season, Green gave Thompson the most 130 assists to the team. In the 2015-16 season before Durant arrived, Green gave Thompson 159 assists only four times less than Curry.
According to the latest news, Green's calf injury is related to the lumbar disc, and he will be absent for at least two more weeks. For the Warriors, the biggest impact is not Stephen Curry, who has excellent offensive ability to hold the ball, but Thompson, who is eager to find form. Whether it's Otto Porter or Juan Toscano Anderson, they can't provide Thompson with just the right cover and passing like Green, which makes it difficult for Thompson to play without the ball as comfortably as in the past.
After Thompson's comeback, the Warriors entered a period of run-in pain. Now in this Warriors team, the only people who have worked with Thompson before the injury are Curry, Green, Kevin Looney, Iguodala, damian Lee. Among them, Looney and Iguodala were all substitutes at that time, and Lee was a marginal man who only played 11.7 minutes in only 32 games. Originally, after Thompson returned to the Warriors, the Warriors needed to re-run in, and now Green can't play because of injury, Curry has injured the bulls' right hand before, and has recently been in a downturn, and the Warriors' run-in pain is more serious than expected.
After Thompson's return, the biggest affected are Andrew Wiggins in the starting lineup and Jordan Poole as the sixth man, Thompson averaged 14 shots in the early 20 minutes per game, reaching 25 shots every 36 minutes, and the split ball originally belonged to Wiggins and Poole, and these two people are exactly the types who need the ball to find the rhythm.
Since Thompson's return, Wiggins and Poole's output and stability have decreased a lot. Wiggins played in four games with Thompson, and Wiggins didn't score 20 points in one of them. Poole scored 20 points against the Timberwolves today, but previously scored under 15 points, with two of them shooting less than 30 percent.
In theory, Thompson's return has made the Warriors more powerful. But basketball isn't a simple arithmetic of one plus one equals two, and there are too many variables in it, not that Thompson's return will make the Warriors stronger in an instant.
The Warriors understand that, so they're gradually increasing Thompson's playing time, rather than rushing to get Thompson to play 30+ minutes. So Cole is experimenting with lineups, looking for the best lineups and the best ways to use Thompson, even if it's a temporary sacrifice.
In the last 10 games, the Warriors have lost 6. In 4 of Thompson's games, the Warriors lost three. The Warriors are now 2.5 wins behind the Suns, the number one in the West, but neither the Warriors nor Thompson are worried. For them, in the journey to the championship, this painful period is what they have to face, and this is the price they have to pay.
As Thompson himself said:
"The end of the tunnel is always bright, difficult times cannot last forever, strong people can always overcome."