What? Here's How Kyrie Irving And Klay Thompson Could Have Been Teammates
The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers faced off in the NBA Finals four straight times from 2015-18.
For three of those battles, Kyrie Irving was a member of the Cavs.
Meanwhile, Klay Thompson has spent his entire career on the Warriors.
Something that is very interesting is that Thompson and Irving could have been teammates on the Cavs.
How?
In 2011, the Cavs drafted Irving with the first overall pick in the NBA Draft, and the Warriors selected Thompson with the 11th overall pick.
However, the Cavs also had the fourth overall pick and they selected Tristan Thompson.
Therefore, the Cavs could have actually drafted Thompson and Irving in the same draft class, and that would have prevented the Warriors from pairing Thompson with Steph Curry.
The backcourt of Thompson and Irving would have been lethal, but no one will ever know how it turned out.
Instead, Thompson and Curry formed the best shooting backcourt in the history of the league, and they have won four NBA Championships together (all in the last eight seasons).
As for Irving, he won the NBA Championship in 2016 with the Cavs (LeBron James rejoined the team in 2014 and Irving played with him for three seasons).
In the summer of 2017, Irving was traded from the Cavs to the Boston Celtics where he played for two seasons.
After that, he signed with the Nets in the summer of 2019.
Thompson and Irving being teammates instead of Curry and Thompson is one of the better hypotheticals in league history.
