SAN FRANCISCO • Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson was ruled out of the entire 2020-21 National Basketball Association (NBA) season after suffering a torn Achilles tendon, the team said on Thursday, in a shattering blow to the five-time All-Star who was bidding to return after a year-long injury absence.
Thompson - who missed all of last season after a knee injury sustained in the NBA Finals last year - had limped out of a workout on Wednesday. An MRI scan on Thursday confirmed the 30-year-old tore his right Achilles tendon.
He was a key part of the Warriors team who dominated the league with five straight runs to the NBA Finals and titles in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Without him, and after team-mate Stephen Curry was sidelined for four months with a broken hand, the Warriors finished last in the Western Conference last season.
Warriors general manager Bob Myers said the franchise had been left in shock about the guard's latest injury blow. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he described the scene when he learnt of the news of Thompson's injury.
"These are those phone calls when the colour drains from your face," a subdued Myers said. "I got a message from his agent that said 'Hey, Klay might have injured himself. Call me'."
Myers said Thompson's close friends and teammates Curry and Draymond Green had been stunned into silence when he called with the news.
"Sometimes words don't do it," he said. "It's not news you want to break on the phone. There was a lot of silence."
But he backed Thompson to eventually return from the injury, even if by the time he sets foot on a court again, it is likely to be more than two years since he last played.
"Klay will keep playing," he said. "He has a strength of will but right now it's a tough day for him. This is a guy that loves basketball, that bleeds basketball."
A career 41.9 per cent shooter from three-point range, Thompson averaged 21.5 points a game during the 2018-19 campaign, his last full season with the team.
Even though it was clear that he would miss the subsequent season, the Warriors still signed him to a five-year US$190 million (S$255.3 million) contract at the start of free agency in July last year, banking on the belief that he would return to full health. But he has yet to play a game on his new deal.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, NYTIMES
