Klay Thompson Scouting Report From USA Basketball 2014 Training Camp, Day One: ‘Off The Bounce’ (Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account)
MENDENHALL CENTER, LAS VEGAS, NV — Golden State Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson showed off a newly added move to his ever-growing repertoire of weaponry from long distance today at the U.S. Men’s National Team (#USMNT) training camp in Las Vegas. He is trying to make it onto #TeamUSA’s roster at the shooting guard position, against the likes of Bradley Beal and DeMar DeRozan.
As scrimmage teammate and point guard Kyrie Irving handed the ball off to Thompson on the right wing on one play, a dribbling Thompson shifted towards the left, causing defender Damian Lillard to lean that way, then crossed over left-to-right and, pivoting on his left foot and turning back towards the rim, launched and successfully converted a three-pointer, all in one motion — a “dribble-stop-and-pop”.
“I feel I’m a great spot up shooter so I’m trying to do everything off the bounce as much as I can,” Thompson told LetsGoWarriors after the scrimmages, “Just making me more dangerous, just getting in a rhythm, just trying to tighten up my handle.”
Media attended the only last twenty to thirty minutes of the scrimmages, so there was not a lot of action to go off of, but from what we saw, despite one instance of poor ball-handling, Thompson displayed some good general basketball play.
He had a track-down swat of a John Wall fastbreak, left-handed layup attempt.
He cut to the basket from the weakside when the offense seemed stagnant.
He had a nice defensive tip rebound to a teammate on an up-for-grabs ball against taller players.
Thompson even had a nice left-handed drive into the paint from the right elbow. When he met Andre Drummond‘s big body helping out and retreating into the paint, he threw back the ball at an almost impossible angle to where he had started the play, to a wide-open Paul Millsap, who missed the trey attempt.
However, on another play with the ball in his hands at the top of the key, isolated, and with opposing assistant coach Tom Thibodeau barking at Thompson’s defender, DeRozan, to get up in Thompson’s face, Thompson hesitated at the sudden pressure and leaned into DeRozan, charging into him. It was an easy call for the referee to make.
Last summer, it was evident from #USMNT play that Thompson had added a drop-pass on a high pick-and-roll to his game. This summer, it seems he’s adding more to his repertoire yet again.
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