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Emotional Klay Thompson gets cheers, heartfelt tribute in Bay Area return

Warriors family shows their love and appreciation for the former Golden State star who helped them win 4 titles.

Warriors legend Klay Thompson basks in the adulation from his former home fans as he makes his return to Chase Center.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Klay Thompson exited the team bus then beamed as he strolled back into Chase Center on Tuesday night, greeted by some 400 cheering Warriors employees who lined up along his path to the Dallas locker room to show their love and appreciation for the former Golden State star.

They sported “Captain Klay” hats, the giveaway for all fans on a celebratory night remembering Thompson’s 13 years with the franchise, two of those spent injured, and four championships he helped win here.

Those white hats filled Chase Center, where video highlights of Thompson showed in a place where he’s still beloved — and always will be. Stephen Curry jogged up to Thompson, now wearing No. 31 with teammate Kyrie Irving in No. 11, and offered a quick embrace before Andrew Wiggins also hugged his old teammate.

Stephen Curry scored 37 points, including Golden State’s final 12, to rally the Warriors past Klay Thompson and the Dallas Mavericks 120-117 on Tuesday night in an Emirates NBA Cup game.

Thompson finished with 22 points in an emotional return to Chase Center for the first time since he departed to join Dallas in July.

Earlier, after a brief jump-rope routine outside the Mavericks’ locker room, Thompson ran out the tunnel and onto the floor to thunderous applause from Warriors fans with phones up to capture the moment of Thompson’s return.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Curry had considered addressing the crowd before tipoff but spoke with Thompson and they decided to each focus on the game, though Kerr knew it would be something when they had to defend each other.

Curry fouled his former Splash Brother 15 seconds into the game and Thompson scored the initial two points of the contest on free throws.

“I imagine that he’ll be the exact same guy that I watched for 10 years, so he’s always aggressive,” Kerr said. “I’m sure he’s coming out firing and none of us would have it any way different than that.”

The Warriors invited all their employees to be part of the welcoming committee for Thompson, who joined Dallas in July on a three-year, $50 million contract. Thompson, 34, missed more than 2 1/2 years — the entire 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons — recovering from surgeries on his left knee and right Achilles tendon before making his comeback in January 2022.

“I think what he overcame is almost unprecedented,” Kerr said. “… The last couple of years after he came back he struggled reconciling all of that, losing those prime seasons. We all saw that, saw him struggle with it emotionally. We saw him fight to get his game back. He helped us win a championship, led the league in 3s two years ago, he did a lot of amazing things.

We wished that this had gone forever, that Klay would have finished his career with us but circumstances always dictate these things. In the end I think he made the right choice. I think he needed a fresh start, I think he needed kind of a new set of surroundings and that was apparent last year. He was not happy and that was hard to see, because he deserves to be happy. At his core he’s a very happy person.”

Thompson has tried to downplay the magnitude of being back in the Bay Area, though it certainly was emotional for everybody involved.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, and basketball is basketball,” he said.

But when the home crowd went crazy and tipped those captain hats when he was introduced, Thompson became visibly emotional and clearly touched by the tribute. He waved and saluted in several directions.

Dallas coach Jason Kidd called the Mavericks “lucky to get him,” and imagined how hard this might be for Thompson with so many emotions.

“He’s a true pro. Comes to work, understands what it means to win,” Kidd said. “We can talk about his ability to shoot the ball, space and his gravity. We can run him around, he’s going to create space for others. So when you talk about the big picture that’s hard to find, and we didn’t have that, and it was much-needed.”

Golden State planned a “Salute Captain Klay” ceremony before tipoff to pay tribute to Thompson’s contributions to the franchise and his tradition of boating across the bay to games. He will be back again in February in the Mavs’ second trip to Chase Center.

“This is all staff. It’s unbelievable,” Warriors President and COO Brandon Schneider said. “What Klay has meant to our organization and to all of us the last 13 years, the team accomplishments, individual accomplishments, who he is as a person, what he’s done in the community, it is a special night.”

For Kerr, this moment felt far different from Thompson’s triumphant return nearly three years ago from the injuries and daunting grind of rehab that the veteran guard considered some of the most difficult days of his life.

“That was a welcome back, we knew there were a lot of good times ahead. In fact there was a championship six months later,” Kerr said. “This one is obviously more of a goodbye, the first time we will have seen him. … It’ll feel very strange but it will be a different vibe, more of a thank you and a goodbye and everything that you’ve meant to us.”

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