Shaun Livingston and Klay Thompson were Warriors teammates for five seasons, but they’ll forever be spirit brothers, decorated members of the NBA’s inspirational comeback battalion.
Both sustained devastating injuries that forced them to come face to face with career mortality. Both climbed from the depths of despair to become significant contributors on Golden State championship teams.
So, he knows the road Thompson had to travel after sustaining a torn ACL in June 2019 and a ruptured Achilles tendon in November 2020. It was 941 days later that Thompson returned to the court.
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Livingston, having retired and moved into an executive role with the Warriors, was a very interested observer.
“We all wanted Klay Thompson to be the person that he was before he went down with that injury,” Livingston said on NBC Sports Bay Area’s "Dubs Talk" podcast. “But biology doesn't always work that way.”
Thompson’s signature shot was a bit less consistent, his once-stellar defense considerably less effective. As he struggled with who he had become, there were more irritable moments than ever before.
Klay’s internal turbulence laid the groundwork for his departure this summer, when 30 months after his January 2022 return to the Golden State lineup he became an unrestricted free agent and signed a three-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks.
Golden State Warriors
“Having to go through that experience and then come back and not necessarily move the same way that you might want to move on the court, it's frustrating man,” Livingston said. “It's frustrating. And all the emotions that go into it because as professional athletes, we really dedicate our lives to this.”
Livingston, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2004 NBA draft, was 21 years old, in his third season, when an awkward landing obliterated his left knee in February 2007. He missed one full season and much of two others. It was more than three years before he would play a full season.
More than a dozen years later, Livingston still could feel the physical highs and lows as well as the emotional anguish confronting Thompson during his extended rehabilitation.
That’s what kept Livingston going. When physicians were pondering amputation, he vowed to recover, rehabilitate and return to the NBA. When Thompson felt like quitting, his pride grabbed him by the collar and demanded he keep going.
Keep going, even if your teammates are struggling without you; the Warriors finished with an NBA-worst 15-50 record in the first season without Thompson. They missed the playoffs in the second season. He couldn’t do much more than watch from afar. Even when up close.
“I don’t care what you say, even if you’re on the roster, if you're not playing the game, if you're not playing in the game, there's still another level of separation,” Livingston said. “It's like we're watching on TV, that's a whole another level of separation.
“Being in the locker room, now you're in it, but you're not in it unless you're on the court. “Even if you’re wearing a jersey but you're not playing, there's still another separation. Nothing can replace being on the court, and that sweat equity. Just going to the games and now you just have to watch.
“You can give input, because you're Klay Thompson. But it's not necessarily the same because you're not out there.”
When Klay returned in January 2022, it was to a thunderous ovation at Chase Center. He appreciated the support, but very few knew what it took for him to get that far. There were the members of the medical staff, the trainers and, well, his former teammate.
It took Livingston seven years to find the Warriors. He’d gone through seven different NBA teams, one of them twice, in that time. He’d carried his own bags to the bus in what was then the D League.
“Having to humble myself, find that humility, dust my ego off and say hey, it’s about trying to find a way,” he said. “Find a way to be impactful. Find a way to play the game you love. Find a way to do it at a high level. And then, from there, ‘Can I find a way to do it on a winning team? Can I find a way to be in the playoffs again?’
“That’s what led me to Golden State and to the stage and I was able to play at.”
Livingston earned three championship rings in his five seasons in Golden State’s rotation. He won them alongside Stephen Curry and Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala and Kevin Durant and many others. Including Thompson, when he was a franchise fixture playing at All-Star level.
As a team executive, Livingston picked up a fourth ring when the Warriors won the in 2022 NBA Finals. That was with the new Klay, with whom he was more familiar than the old Klay.
“There's a lot of our identity that's caught up into what we do,” Livingston said. “It’s challenging. It's hard.
But we all have to really commend Klay on the road that he actually walked down, and then started to run again and started to show glimpses of who he was. And that says something about his character and who he is as a person.”
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