The game is over. The hug is complete. The embarrassing polite words were also spoken: the sky is your limit, bless you and my brother, and I wish you to make the playoffs......
The season is over. The losing Warriors came out in droves. Klay Thompson is draped in a towel, turning back three times at a time, and you don't know what he's looking at. I remember the last time someone turned around in the players' tunnel like this, it was when the fans insulted their family. It makes sense for Wei Zhong to turn around, but Clay is a little weird when he turns around. This isn't the Chase Center, it's the Golden One, it's not a Finals tie-break, it's just a play-off 90 battle, it's not the last game of the retirement show, Klay is only 34 years old and 69 days old.
The 21-year-old Podzemski, who is younger than Klay, is still unsatisfied: "It's special to get a lot of playing time with a championship-contending team in your rookie season. "As far as I know, if someone as mediocre as Podzemski can get a lot of playing time in a "championship team", the "championship team" is likely to have some problems. But for Sister Bo herself, he doesn't have any problems, he is still on a cost-effective rookie contract, he will stay with the Warriors, he may even be in the Rookie of the Year team, and when his career continues to Klay at this stage, whether the honor will still stay in 2024, no one knows, it doesn't matter, whether his career can continue to that length is a question in itself.
Chris Paul, who is older than Klay and turns 39 18 days away, decided to make a sacrifice early in the season, interrupting his previous record of 1,365 starts in 19 years, walking to the bench, sitting there, then getting injured, then sitting back there, and finally playing 58 regular season games, interrupting his record of making the playoffs for 13 consecutive years. It was a fateful season for Paul, a year like joining the national army in '49. For a whole year, in the face of all the bad things happening in the Warriors' locker room, in the face of a bad record and a precarious situation, Paul may or may not say something, but it doesn't matter what he says, and it is a problem in itself that he can be a Warriors man for a few days on an unguaranteed contract.
But Klay has a problem, and his contract extension issue is like the pink elephant in the room that the Warriors have chosen to ignore for an entire year. There's an argument that Klay is very unhappy with the Warriors' evasive attitude, which sounds like a good fit for the Warriors dynasty's usual posture when it comes to tough issues. Durant once talked about the "Green formula" incident in which the biggest stab to himself was the team's evasive cold attitude, and sometimes you feel that the team is proud of it, and after winning the championship in 2018, David West said triumphantly: "You think this championship will come easily, but you don't know what's going on in our locker room." You'll never know. Of course, this may not be a harsh judgment on the Warriors, maybe every dynasty will be at the top of the day, and when they come to the sun, they will habitually hide their pickles, but they don't have to stop at basketball.
There is also a theory that the Warriors did have talks with Klay, but the two sides had too much disagreement on the price of the contract extension, so it was shelved. That's a fair statement, as in Game 13 of the season, Klay scored five points on 1-of-10 shooting in 28 minutes, and he was ejected after playing less than two minutes in the previous game. At that time, Klay's three-point shooting rate was less than 3 to 3, and playing the ball once reminded me of the Lakers' unhappy version of Bynum in the later period. I thought about it, how can Clay reach out for a big contract if he fights like this? I thought, Clay doesn't fight like this, how can he reach out for a big contract? The dog at home, the cigarette in his mouth, the wine in his hand, the yacht going to sea, the old Paul and the bare-ass woman on the yacht, which one doesn't want money? Oh, Paul doesn't want money.
But then Cole talked to Clay, and he said Clay, you, you missed two years of golden time, and if you can't do anything about some things now, you should let go, "Instead of chasing the greatness of the past, you should cherish what you have now." ”
It sounds that in addition to not quoting scriptures, Cole's level of warmth is very close to Dong Yuhui. No matter how much the culture folks on the toilet sneer at this kind of chicken soup, the truth is that it worked, Klay went to the bench, Klay returned to calm, Klay returned to the starting line in the final 10 games of the season, averaging 21.8 points in 30 minutes per game, shooting 10 three-pointers per game and shooting 41.6 percent, the Warriors only lost 2 games at this stage, and you feel like everything is back.
Even if they end up in the playoffs as 10th in the West, their Klay is back, their win rate is back, and their opponents, the Kings, have lost their best sixth man, Monk, with just four wins in their last 11 games. Before the play-offs actually started, the most unfavorable prediction for the Warriors was "we want to see the Lakers play the Warriors".
When the game was over, we found out that the Warriors' season was over, and in a kind of collapse fashion, Klay, who had come back, shot 0 out of 10 in this game, scored 0 points, and couldn't guard anyone.
From that perspective, you'll feel like it's all over, and this play-off on April 17 will be the last wave of the Splash Brothers. Klay was not interviewed after the game, but told reporters in pre-game training: "It's hard not to think about the possibility of being a free agent after the season. That's life, I've had so much success here, and I'm not going to let anything in the future let me down with what I've accomplished at the Warriors. ”
Anything. Won't be disappointed.
Sounds like another form of unexpected. With the game out of suspense in the final two minutes, Klay and the rest of the starters returned to the bench, where he sat with a wry smile. I saw a friend reminiscing online about the past, saying that after the Warriors were eliminated by the Clippers in the first round in 2014, Klay broke down in the locker room. "When Clay cried, I thought the future was bright for this Warriors, and now he's sitting there laughing, and I know this Warriors are finished," the friend said. ”
I can understand what this friend is trying to say. But I think Clay is 34 years old, in one of the most exposed and traffic-driven teams, and we all know all the glory and pain that he has experienced from 2014 to 2024, and he deserve any bleak ending with some wry smiles, you see I have expressed my attitude in English, which shows that I really think Clay deserve. He can't cry in the dressing room like he did when he was 24, you can't imagine it, it's too numb. After a whole year of torture, a little improvement is not enough to make a middle-aged man's mood so up and down. Sooner or later, middle-aged men will learn to raise their glasses after a failure. A drink for real life.
After the finale, Clay reluctantly turned back frequently, he may just have some doubts and a trace of unwillingness: obviously he felt good before. But I guess the feeling of loss was just a loss, because Cole's chicken soup had been poured into Clay's head. If a guy like Klay could "embrace what he has at the moment" as Kerr puts it, he wouldn't be the Klay we know anymore, he'd be a good bench player and even played well in some games, but once he's accepted it, he's given up on "chasing past greatness", and he might finally win a championship again and cry, but he'll never do that again after a loss, replaced by a wry smile. The wry smile is the signature expression of "calmly accepting with a hint of unwillingness, and accepting calmly after a trace of unwillingness".
Who really knows if Klay will leave as a free agent? Kerr said "we desperately need Klay back". Dream said the Warriors will definitely re-sign Klay: "The team has always had nothing but respect, loyalty, love and trust in players. I have no reason to think they won't do the right thing to Clay."
The last time I heard someone use a bunch of good words like "respect, loyalty, love, and trust" was when Mazzulla was in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, and it felt like good things were going to happen when all the good words were said.
Of course, in addition to the boss and manager, the Warriors also have the most important person who has spoken. Curry didn't grit his teeth and declare that no one wants to touch us next year after this out. He is also 36 years old. Curry said two things after the game:
One is to defend Clay, "Clay has not been easy this year. You can talk about a game, but I know he wants to play well...... What I care more about is being able to have fun with basketball and then accept the results. ”
The second is to talk about the future of the Kuchai soup group: "I can't imagine not having them around. I understand that no one is going to fight forever, but we've been through so much together. The only thing I care about is that I know they are hungry to win, and so am I. ”
But the importance of this famously moderate leader's attitude, and the extent to which it influences the team's decision-making, has been a mystery. It's been 2 years since they won the title in 2022. In the past 2 years, Dream has played teammates, Curry has been injured, Wiggins has left the team, Myers has resigned, Poole has been traded, Dream has been banned, Dream has been banned again, the team's assistant coach has died, and Wiggins has left the team again......
Perhaps like the metaphysical theory that "data doesn't tell what it does on the court", there are leaders like Curry, and it's hard to tell how much control he has over the team from so many bad things on the surface. Of course, that logic is always there, and maybe that's how the dynastic warriors played, they covered everything up, and we probably won't be able to learn more about Curry's mastery from some players' dictations and autobiographies until they've completely retired from the stage — and maybe it would have been worse without Curry?
After the speeches of Kerr, Dream Chaser and Curry, the following summer is the real life that free agent Klay will face, in addition to the dog at home, the cigarette in his mouth, the wine in his hand, the yacht that goes to sea, the old Paul on the yacht and the bare-ass woman, a more real life. Hemingway said in "The Old Man and the Sea" that the appearance of the first shark was not accidental, and the appearance of the cruel side in real life in the eyes of outsiders will not be accidental. You don't know what will happen when both parties actually sit down at the negotiating table, and even if you have done everything psychologically, you won't be as calm as you depict in chicken soup when you really need to negotiate your future life in a calm and almost cold way.
Before Clay confronts all of this, and before the dust settles, I think we can probably think of Clay's reluctance on the court as a final scene for the unexpected. I have very limited memories of things, and I think it takes a lot of luck or misfortune to be able to remember any of them. I remember Duncan's final scene, where he walked deep into the tunnel's tunnel at the Chesapeake Energy Arena, leaving us with a one-fingered back, and I remember the Black Mamba's final scene, where he spoke and dropped the microphone. I obviously don't remember more things, and some things I wouldn't remember at all unless I saw them and had a relationship with them. I don't remember Ginobili leaving, Parker, Iverson, Maddie, Yao Ming...... Instead, I remember Pierce's last scene, the heroic appearance of being welded to the bench, so I would say that there are things to remember, sometimes it takes misfortune.
After the game, Fox said about the future of the Warriors: "I watched them win championships when I was a sophomore in high school. We've been looking at this team for a long, long time. If that's the end, so be it. ”
So, if that's the end of this article, so be it.