The impact social media has on our daily lives, for better or worse, is undeniable. It can be a source of comfort or entertainment. It can be at the dark root leading to violence or suicide.
Entertainers and professional athletes, making millions in the glare of fame, are not immune.
For Klay Thompson, social media was an addiction that adversely affected his attempts to recapture his status as an NBA All-Star and key member of the defending-champion Warriors.
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Thompson spent a few minutes after shootaround Friday discussing the positive change in his outlook since he decided to break his habit and, at least for now, enter the No-Trolls Zone.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, in my 12th year in this league – like I haven’t been through this before – but I just had a moment of weakness,” he said. “I’ve just learned to focus on the games and the weekly gaze, not look too far ahead, and you’ll enjoy the run so much more. And that’s what I’ve been doing these last couple weeks, rather than after a game, going on social media checking your mentions.
“Whether it’s great or bad, it’s just not good.”
Klay spent the first month of the season trying to produce at his customary level. He was failing. His shot, his signature, was falling at career-low percentages. His defense was less than what it was before sustaining a torn ACL and ruptured Achilles’ tendon in successive years, costing him 31 months of NBA activity.
Golden State Warriors
He was frustrated, the trolls pounced, and his addiction to them amplified those frustrations.
“We’re all human and we care what people think about our games,” Thompson said. “Not necessarily us, personally, but we take pride in our game, our strengths, our weaknesses, and sometimes it hurts when you put in so much effort to be great and people criticize you.
“But that is the nature of the beast when you’re a professional athlete. And the quicker you understand that, the better off you’re going to be.”
Thompson has been spectacularly efficient over the past week. His performance in the three games he played – 26.3 points per game, shooting 55.1 percent from the field, including 56.7 percent from deep, with the Warriors winning all three games – indicate he has found the rhythm that eluded him through the first month.
Asked if his hiatus from social-media scrolling, mostly via Twitter and Instagram, has helped him dump his slump, Thompson’s expression of relief was both audible and visible.
“Absolutely,” he said. “That’s a direct correlation. When you just come to work every day happy to be an athlete and put this uni on, and you don’t pay attention to the noise, you’re just playing with such a free mind. And that’s the key to success right there, just being able to flow and play for the love of the game.”
If Warriors coach Steve Kerr could wave a wand to fulfill his wish, the Warriors might be the first NBA team to turn back the calendar to, oh, about 2002. There would be no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no real-time commentary on the fortunes of the team.
And Thompson might be among the Warriors inclined to go along with such a program.
“I have so much more time on my hands,” he said. “I’m not on social media looking at the comments. I really learned if you lurk, you’re going to get hurt. Try it. Relay that message to the young bucks, because we play in a time when everybody’s opinion is so accessible. And players back in the day, you might have to look at some news articles talking about your play, but not on four different social-media platforms. I just learned to spend my time better.
“That’s not on them. It’s on me for looking.”
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The looking has been halted, at least for now – and probably for as long as the shots keep falling and the Warriors keep winning.