Warriors' Klay Thompson wins over his toughest critic (w/video)

Mychal Thompson purchased a new, bigger, wider-screen cellphone just a few days ago, and not surprisingly, he is ecstatic he made the investment.

The longtime Los Angeles Lakers broadcaster watched the phenomenal performance by his son, Warriors guard Klay Thompson - 52 points, including an NBA record 37 in the third quarter against Sacramento - Friday night while flying home on the Lakers’ team jet from San Antonio.

“It was like Klay channeled his Michael Jordan-Reggie Miller-Kobe Bryant inner ghosts, and they all possessed his body last night,” Thompson said Saturday. “It was something to see. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to miss that.”

Thompson is generally a tough critic of Klay’s performances; the younger Thompson mused that his dad would say he should have scored 60 points. But Dad disputed that, saying he would never be so critical of a performance in which his son made all 13 of his third-quarter shots, including 9-for-9 from behind the 3-point arc.

“I just told him, ‘Great job,’?” Thompson said. “If he would have played the fourth quarter, he definitely would have scored 60. He would have made 15 or 16 3s and broken that record, too. But 52 is quite remarkable, quite acceptable.

“To do something that Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan have never done,” he said, referring to the 37-point quarter, “that’s something you should be proud of and take to your grave with you.”

The elder Thompson said he thought his son might be in for a big game as he watched the first few minutes of the third quarter.

“He hit his first couple of 3s and I said, ‘OK, he’s in a nice zone.’ And then he just kept going.

“I wasn’t all that surprised; he was capable of something like that. When you have a shooter with the ability of Steph (Curry) or Klay or somebody like Ray Allen, those kinds of things can happen at any time. You just get into a zone. If you’re good enough and you play basketball long enough, you’re going to have one of those kinds of nights. I even had a few. Not 37 in one quarter, but I had them. You feel like you can’t miss.”

The number 37 keeps showing up in Thompson family lore. It’s the number of points Klay scored in the California state high school championship game. It’s the number that represents Mychal Thompson’s NBA career scoring high.

“I did it in my second professional game,” Thompson said. “And now Klay equaled the best I ever did in a game in one quarter. That puts it in some pretty amazing perspective.”

There is another 37 of significance. Mychal Thompson said he’s in his 37th NBA season as a player or a broadcaster and still has never attended the All-Star game. So he is as eager as the Warriors about whether Klay will be named to the Western Conference roster for the event at New York’s Madison Square Garden in mid-February.

“I’d really like to go to one,” Mychal said. “But there are a lot of great guards in the West.”

Thompson has long held that his son had a natural shooting gift, but he stressed that Klay always worked hard to refine it with the help of coaches.

“He’s had some really good teachers, starting with his high school coach Jerry DeBusk at Santa Margarita and also his shooting coach down in Orange County, Joedy Gardner,” he said. “Klay and his brother Mychel have worked with Jody for years and years, so they owe a lot of their shooting success to Jody.

“But guys like Klay and Steph also had an unfair advantage because they got to grew up around the NBA,” he continued. “They got to talk to legends like Alonzo Mourning and Clyde Drexler and Kobe. They were around these guys their whole lives as toddlers and young basketball players, so when they started playing the game, they could watch and get advice from them and learn the environment. That’s why they are so professional in their approach to the game.”

It helps to have good genes, too. Mychal Thompson had a fruitful 13-year NBA career. In addition to Klay, eldest son, Mychel, plays for the Warriors’ Developmental League team in Santa Cruz while the youngest, Trayce, is at the Triple-A level with the Chicago White Sox baseball team. Thompson’s wife, Julie, was a volleyball star at USF.

“They get it from their mother,” Mychal said. “She’s the athlete in the family.”

Thompson added that he couldn’t be prouder of his son, and his nothing to do with Friday night’s record-setting performance.

“When I travel around the NBA, I hear from the fans and they tell me, ‘Hey, Klay is really a nice guy,’?” he said. “That’s what I’m most proud of. He doesn’t act like a prima donna. He takes time for fans. He signs autographs for kids. I always tell him that’s what I love about him the most, how nice he is with people.”