The Warriors are no longer targeting their home games on December 20 or 23 for Klay Thompson‘s return to action, sources tell Shams Charania and Anthony Slater of The Athletic (Twitter link). Thompson also won’t play in Golden State’s Christmas Day game in Phoenix.
The Warriors and Thompson, who is coming off an Achilles tear, have never projected an exact date for his return, but reports over the last few months had previously cited Christmas as an approximate goal. The club reportedly prefers to have him make his season debut at home rather than on the road, so those Dec. 20 and 23 home games vs. Sacramento and Memphis, respectively, have been considered prime targets for a while.
However, the Warriors also don’t want to put any pressure on Thompson to return before he’s 100% ready, and there’s certainly no rush to get him back in the lineup — the Dubs have an NBA-best 23-5 record and can afford to be patient.
Thompson is currently in the process of ramping up his conditioning, so his return timeline remains somewhat in flux. As Charania and Slater observe, the earliest we could see the veteran sharpshooter back in action would be on December 28, when the Warriors host the Nuggets. After that, Golden State travels to Denver (Dec. 30) and Utah (Jan. 1) before returning home for a Jan. 3 contest vs. the Heat.
The whole league will be shut down by then… Omnicron is no joke.
Bubble time, unfortunately.
Man…what if KT comes back and gets a sever case of Covid in the first few days and then is out for the year
That, or the H&S guidelines will have to change significantly. But even that may not be enough.
Going to be interesting to see what the league does.
You spelled “season flu” incorrectly
Anyone else think it’s weird that there was talk of him coming back even sooner than Dec. 20th and then the talk died down and now they are saying he won’t come back until “after Christmas”…from the outside looking in sounds like his “ramp up” is going as well as they hoped.
May be more of a reflection of how well the Warriors have done to start the season. Less incentive to bring him back earlier.
Warriors with Thompson’ll be unstoppable
With the record they have no rush on him or wiseman. PHX needs to make a move if they want to win the west so does Utah. So glad to see the laker ship has sold.