2019 was the year that things went haywire for Klay Thompson. Up until then, he just had the usual injuries a basketball player would endure in his career. A sprained ankle, back tightness, strained knee – the usual. But China Klay missed his first-ever playoff game thanks to a strained left hamstring. Without Thompson along with Kevin Durant and key backup big man, Kevon Looney, the Toronto Raptors “let it rip” in Game 3. If only one of the league’s finest sharpshooters knew it was just the calm before the storm.

Game 6 is probably one matchup the Warriors fans and Thompson (obviously) would never forget. The fated injury happened with just three minutes left in the third quarter. See if you can visualize that moment. Klay rose for a dunk to finish off a fast break. Danny Green fouled him – hard – while Thompson was still in the air. The 6’6 guard came down awkwardly on his left leg and immediately fell down, grabbing his knee and writhing in obvious pain.

We all know what happened next. GSW provided the heartbreaking update that the 5x All-Star had torn the ACL on his left knee, just days after KD ruptured an Achilles tendon. Toronto got their first title and the Warriors were just about to lose their Splash Brother for two straight seasons. Despite the update that he would miss an entire season, Klay Thompson signed a 5-year deal for $190 million on July 1.

That’s how much the franchise valued and trusted their star forward. And the best way to show that was this deal. Updates about Thompson’s rehabilitation were promising. But on November 18, 2020, the Warriors dropped a shocking update – Klay Thompson was out for the next season as well. Although the now-31-year-old recovered perfectly fine from his ACL injury, he ended up tearing his Achilles in the right leg during an off-season workout.

The Dubs hadn’t qualified for the playoffs in either of these seasons. In fact, on one of the occasions, Stephen Curry & Co. posted a disappointing 15-50 record! Eventually, Klay returned to the floor, healthy and ready to take the world after 941 days of absence.

Klay Thompson makes a jubilant return to the court en route to the Warriors fourth title

On his return, the LA native posted 17 points in 20 minutes against the Cavaliers as the Warriors won 96-82. Following this, Thompson posted a then-season-high 33 points (16 coming in the fourth quarter alone) in a narrow 117-115 victory against the Lakers on February 12, 2022. The next notable instance was during the Dubs’ head-to-head with the then-reigning champs, the Milwaukee Bucks.

Klay scored 38 points (then-season-high) as the team ran past Antetokounmpo & Co. with a 122-109 win. But was he done? Not by a mile! The final game of the regular season – against the Pelicans – saw Thompson drop another season-high 41 points as the Warriors clinched the No. 3 seed in the West. Game 6 Klay was inbound.

Perhaps the first memorable moment in the playoffs was when the 3x gold medalist passed (388) Hall of Famer, Ray Allen (385), for third on the NBA playoffs’ all-time three-pointers list. It happened during GSW’s Game 3 triumph over Denver. But he still had LeBron James to surpass, which he did in the NBA Finals’ 120-108 Game 1 loss, bringing his total to 434 at the time.

Fast forward to Game 5, and Thompson once again made history by joining Steph and LeBron and jumping ahead of the latter, to make at least 100 3-pointers on the championship stage. And finally, after an avalanche of “dog days,” as Thompson describes it – what with injuries to their key players, Durant leaving in the summer that thrust them into a fight or flight mode which resulted in adding Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole – the Warriors made it to what would be their final championship under the guidance of the famed Splash Brothers. 

But you know what else we are going to remember from that Game 6 stage? “Holy cannoli!” 

Hopefully, we can hear it one more time before Klay Thompson hangs his boots for good.