Klay Thompson should let the game come to him

Klay is trying too hard to force his offense. He needs to take a step back and find his rhythm.

Klay Thompson is having a strange year. He set the record for most threes in a game and has upped his scoring average from last year, but he’s been much less efficient along the way. His True Shooting percentage of .532 is the worst of his career, and he’s shooting more two pointers than any other time in his career.

Thompson began the season on a slump from three-point range, and he’s still only hitting 33.7% of his attempts. It’s by far the worst mark in his career; he hasn’t shot worse than 40% in any year in the league. As a result of his struggles from long range, the coaching staff has given him more and more set plays from the midrange in order to find his rhythm. From there, he’s done okay, but his efficiency has still taken a significant nosedive.

Klay has the highest usage of his career, is taking more shots than ever before, and is shooting fewer corner threes than ever before. So much shot-hunting is not doing him or the Warriors many favors.

The simple cure is to stick with the gameplan Klay’s honed over the years. He’s not a great midrange scorer, and it’s not very efficient for him to work in that area. He’s going to have to hit his threes to get out of his slump. The Warriors will have to lean on the shot creation abilities of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant if Klay is going to be doing more off-ball to find looks from three-point range. Luckily, those two are instant offense, and are working off each other better than ever.

For Klay, less is more. The offense will be fine with him stepping back into more of a secondary role. Sooner or later, he’ll be hitting his threes at an elite rate again. After all, he’s one of the very best shooters of all time.