The Klay Thompson-Golden State Warriors memories will outlast the sadness of separation

Divorces are hard, but they don’t always signify a failure. 

Many marriages end poorly with heartbreak, sadness and often bitterness. But the end doesn’t mean the path to that conclusion was a failure. If enough time passes, the former couple can sometimes look back on the success they had: the families they built, the love they shared and the moments that felt like love would last forever.

One day, the Golden State Warriors and free agent guard Klay Thompson, who reportedly has joined the Dallas Mavericks after a sign-and-trade with the Warriors, will be able to come together to celebrate the wins they curated together. But for now, the split after 13 years together has felt as emotional a separation as we’ll see in an NBA full of short-term contracts and player-personnel juggling. As a result, we are in the bitter throes of a nasty divorce a year in the making, one that both parties will have to heal from before being able to celebrate their generational successes.

A year ago, it seemed impossible for Thompson to part from the Warriors – to part from his fellow Splash Brother, guard Stephen Curry, and break up the trio they built with forward Draymond Green. However, bitter feelings, mistrust and disrespect has caused enough damage in the past year to the point that a bridge was broken. But it wasn’t broken in one devastating crash. The hinges wore down. The cables withered. And the structure couldn’t withstand the weight of the tension that was a year in the making.

There was Thompson watching the Warriors prioritize the Green and Jordan Poole contracts. There was Thompson being benched and replaced with rookie Brandin Podziemski. There was a year of discontent – news conferences where Thompson held his head down, ruminated on his future and let the world know he was feeling the anxiety of the negotiations. All leading to an offseason of relative silence where neither side moved toward one another all while Golden State was openly lobbying for trades to obtain LA Clippers guard Paul George, a player who would certainly replace Thompson.

Until finally, it was over. Thompson wanted out and he got out, heading to a Dallas team that just made the NBA Finals and is all but guaranteed to end the year better off than the reeling Warriors.

This next season will be full of surreal moments. We’ll see Thompson guarding Curry. We’ll see Green fouling Thompson. The Warriors’ one-time rival, Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving, who hit the game-winner against the Warriors in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals, will be dapping up and celebrating along with Thompson. And we may even see Game 6 Klay being Game 6 Klay for a team other than the Warriors.

It’ll all be hard for Warriors fans to stomach, and rightfully so. The situation is similar to the way Ray Allen left the Boston Celtics in 2012. He was part of an iconic Big 3, though it wasn’t as long-standing as the Warriors’ trio. He left as a free agent to join the rival Heat and Celtics fans had to watch Allen nail a clutch shot that helped the Heat win a championship in 2013. The relationship between Allen and his teammates remained severed for years, until time healed the wounds.

While Thompson, his Warriors teammates and the organization as a whole probably won’t have the type of frigid years that the Celtics had with Allen, there will at least be some awkwardness – maybe even some things said that both sides would like to take back. But eventually they’ll come back to each other. Maybe it’ll be a symbolic 10-day contract at the end of Thompson’s career. Maybe it’ll come when his jersey is retired, or even when the statue is built in front of Chase Center (Thompson should get two, by the way: one by himself and one statue that features him, Green, Curry and maybe Andre Iguodala, together). Whenever that moment comes, everyone will be able to reflect on the moments that made Thompson one of the most beloved players any franchise has ever had.

They’ll be able to look back on the 37 points in one quarter. The Game 6 vs. the Thunder in 2016 that changed the course of the NBA. The championships. The return from the tunnel with a torn ACL where Thompson tried to get back on defense before being pulled off the court for his own good. His return more than two years later from the ACL injury and a torn Achilles. And the final championship in 2022 after he and the rest of the Warriors had been counted out, building themselves back into a title team.

It’s these moments that will last beyond the sadness and shock that everyone is feeling right now. Thompson, the Warriors and their fans will eventually move past what they are experiencing now and look back at their relationship with the fondness they had before he left.

What will last is the love they shared, and that’s all you can ask for in any partnership. That will never go away, no matter how much despair is in the air right now.