Just going to say this and get out of the way: The stories about Klay Thompson’s three years at Washington State are as delightful and on-brand — for both Thompson and the Cougars — as you could hope.
But first WSU had to get Thompson to Pullman.
Ben Johnson, assistant coach: I called Tony Bennett in the middle of the night. He was in Australia recruiting Aron Baynes and Brock Motum. I woke Tony up and just said, “Listen, call Mychal Thompson and get the ball rolling on this thing.” Tony was able to do that, and Klay came up on a visit. Klay is not a man of many words. … He literally said three words the entire visit.
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Tony Bennett, head coach (2006-09): I remember I reached out, and when I got back, I went guns blazing after him. I loved his quiet strength, his humility. … I also remember he missed his connection or something. We still laugh about that.
Abe Lodwick, forward: He didn’t give a whole lot of feedback. There was a gentleman’s bet among the guys on the team about who could get Klay to laugh on his visit. And nobody won.
Daven Harmeling, guard: A lot of people on their recruiting trip want to go out and have a good time. Klay had none of those desires.
Lodwick: We ended up at somebody’s apartment playing “Rock Band.” He was convinced he could beat “Green Grass and High Tides” on expert on the guitar. We sat there for like an hour trying to watch him beat it. He couldn’t beat it, but he was just convinced that he could, and he was really, really competitive and really dialed in.
Thompson: Never could beat it.
Harmeling: We went to the practice gym and we were talking about what we wanted to do that night, and he was like, “I just want to shoot.”
Charlie Enquist, forward: I remember it like it was yesterday. He came in wearing socks and sandals. We were in the practice gym, and we just finished practice. So we all said, “What’s up?” to him, and some of us left and some of us were sitting on the sideline. Klay went to NBA range and probably further and drained 10 3s, maybe even more, in a row. In sandals. No warmups. It was like, “Holy shit.”
Harmeling: I’d never seen anyone with a finish like that on his shot. It was just so steady. We just counted: 12 in a row, 13 in a row. It was either 24 or 26 NBA 3s in a row with his sandals on. I just remember thinking, “This kid is different.”
Lodwick: When he left on his visit, we all thought, “OK, there’s no way he’s coming to Washington State.”
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Johnson: We drove him to the airport and Tony and I looked at each and we were like, “He hated it! He absolutely hated it!”
Bennett: I just told him, “You could come and be a centerpiece to this.”
Johnson: “People don’t understand how competitive he is. That’s part of the reason why we got him. He wanted to go somewhere and truly make a difference. Meaning, we used the fact that UCLA and USC and Arizona didn’t take him and didn’t think he was good enough. We used that as ammunition. “Come to Pullman, and do something that’s never been done before.” And he thought enough of himself and he thought he was that good and that competitive to do that. And I loved that about him.”
This is the part about fireworks.
Bennett: I had a house that was on a hill overlooking the massive city of Pullman. I remember how excited he was because we shot off fireworks. My kids were so young, and I just remember him being one of the kids. It was Fourth of July and we had the guys over, and he was just having a blast.
Johnson: I remember the fireworks story. My wife was like, “Oh, my gosh. Klay loves fireworks.” We couldn’t get him to leave! They were shooting them off, and then we shot them off for another hour after the fireworks were done. He just loved that kind of stuff. And a lot of that was Pullman, a place where you had to make your own fun.
Lodwick: We would get these clementines and we would put fireworks in them and call them clemen-ades and we’d drive around town and throw them around in Pullman.
Thompson: (Clementines) make a great firework enhancer. You just put a Black Cat in them, and it’s fun to blow them up.
Johnson: Like I said: You had to make your own fun.
Marcus Capers, guard: He’d take fireworks apart, get the little powder, get some sandwich bags, put them in water bottles and just make his own fireworks like that. If there was a fireworks show and you watched the kids and then you watched Klay, they’d probably look the same.
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Thompson: Be safe, though. That’s the only thing with fireworks. I don’t recommend using them.
Steven Bjornstad, center: It was over winter break, so no one was in Pullman. I was just sitting in my apartment watching TV, and they came and knocked on the door. They put four smoke bombs right outside my apartment door, so as soon as I opened the door a flood of blue and green smoke just poured into my apartment.
Enquist: We lived behind an alley, and he and Brock would light fireworks in the street right behind our house during winter break when no one was around. We would hide in the house afterward so we wouldn’t get in trouble.
Bjornstad: Charlie’s family has a little vacation home on Crescent Bar. It’s a no-fireworks zone. It’s really dry right in the middle of the state. But, of course, being college kids, we snuck some fireworks in. You know the big mortar tubes? We’re lighting them off and one of these things tips sideways and skips off a couple roofs going across the resort park there and people are coming out of their house going, “What the hell is going on?” We’re scattering, and we’re all trying to protect Klay and hide him.
Did Thompson light it?
Bjornstad: I’m not going to confirm or deny anything about that one.
(Dean Hare/Associated Press)This is the part about why Thompson wore No. 1 in college.
Capers: We picked our number as freshmen, and Klay and I both picked No. 1. So they were like, “Just play one-on-one for it.”
Lodwick: It was a game to 11. I know that Marcus had 10 and Klay had 4 at one point.
Harmeling: It was basically game over.
Capers: I was up 10-4 and I caught a cramp, thinking to myself, “Alright, this will be fine. I can score one more bucket.” We were playing to 11. Klay hit one layup and the rest of them were all 3s and it was 9-10. He lost the ball, and he got it back in the corner, and he didn’t have anymore dribbles. He hit a turnaround 3 in the corner. All net. I lost that bet.
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Thompson: Came back roaring to victory.
Lodwick: That’s just when I started realizing Klay’s different. He’s got a different level.
Capers: After that, I was like, “Why exactly is he at Washington State?”
This is the part about the archery range.
Harmeling: Ask about when Klay had the bow and arrow in the duplex.
Enquist: I think that was his last year. I lived upstairs and it was me, him and Brock Motum. They used the hallway as an archery range. They were shooting it into cardboard, but it was like a full-on arrow so it was going through the cardboard into the wall. We had a couple dents in the wall. Yeah, that was the hot thing for a couple months.
Lodwick: That’s just college in Pullman, man. You’re in a different world. Winter breaks are long. You don’t have school. You get up and go to practice in the morning and come back and you might set up an archery range. Or something along those lines. I don’t know who bought the bow and arrow. I don’t know where it came from. I think it was my idea to put up a bed. I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on our security deposit. But, yeah, we set up an archery range in our duplex. I think Klay bought a bow and arrow. It wasn’t hunting quality, I’ll say that much.
Bjornstad: You had to walk on your toes in that house. You never know walking down the hallways whether or not an arrow was going to be flying around. So you tiptoed around that house. God, they didn’t even have the target up. They were just shooting holes in the wall.
Lodwick: We played a lot of “Call of Duty” at the time so we thought, “That wouldn’t be that hard to do in real life.” And it was. That kind of stuff we did in college, Klay would be so down to set up an archery range today. That’s one of his most endearing qualities.
This is the part about video games.
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Enquist: Klay would definitely make his own fun. Hence the bow and arrow. He loved to go and do donuts with his car when it was snowing out. Or drift on turns. We played a lot of “Mario Kart,” so on turns he would pretend his car was “Mario Kart” and drift around the turns. Every video game was for a naked lap. So if you lost, you had to strip all the way down and run around the house. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that ever paid up for that.
Capers: One time I was getting ready to leave, and I was like, “Klay, I’m about to go to this party. Man, you want to go?” He was like, “Nah, I’m alright, man. I’m probably just gonna chill. But what are they doing there?” I was like, “Man, they’ve got this game called ‘Rock Band’ or something.” He was like, “They got ‘Rock Band?’” Klay went there, man, and took the system and pretty much broke every record on every song. The girl was just looking at me like, “Does he have a life?”
Enquist: We would just play nonstop. We’d go to practice and then we’d play “Rock Band.”
Thompson: Great game. Everyone got involved. Multiple instruments. A good way to learn and appreciate music.
Harmeling: We roomed together on the road, and the one thing we always had to have was Sour Punch Straws. We’d get Sour Punch Straws and play our PSPs.
Ben Loewen, guard: He’s a big kid trapped in a superstar’s body. He really is. He just wants to throw on some sweats and play video games and hang out. That’s how he was the day I met him and I saw him just three weeks ago, and that’s how he is today.
Capers: I was going to get a flight for Game 5 of the Finals in Oakland. He was like, “Nah, we’re about to sweep this. We can tell, they’re just defeated, so come to Cleveland.” After Game 3, they won and we were sitting there chilling. I was like, “Alright, bro. What do you want to do?” We were just sitting there catching up. And as we were catching up, he brought out a Nintendo64. Like, he traveled with it everywhere, and we played “Super Smash Bros.” until probably 3 in the morning.
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Loewen: I started dating my wife in college, and we would all hang out there. My wife’s name is Shawn. This was two years ago. Shawn and I went down to San Francisco, so Klay got us some tickets. After the game, we met up with him and went back to his house in Oakland. NBA player, right? He can do anything. He owns the city. He just wants to go kick it at his house. … So we go back to his house and we walk in and I remember looking around. You know how in every house there’s a junk drawer? There was a counter there, and it was clearly Klay’s junk area. I look a little closer, and his NBA All-Star 3-point championship trophy that he won that year is sitting there. I do a double take and I read it and it’s sitting there with his mail. I was like, “Dude, are you serious? Don’t you think you should put this on a mantle or at least in your closet?” And he was like, “Oh, yeah, man. I got home and put it there, and I just haven’t had time. I don’t know.” Then he’s like, “Let’s go play some video games.” I looked at my wife, and my wife looked at me and we were like, “He has not changed a bit.”
Capers: My friend was like, “So you mean to tell me that Klay Thompson, an A-list NBA player, just played Nintendo64? That’s all you guys did?” And I was like, “Yep. That’s what it is.” Video games, fireworks, Klay’s all about it.
(Dean Hare/Associated Press)This is the part about Thompson’s competitiveness. And that shot.
Reggie Moore, guard: He worked crazy hard. I’d be out partying, and I’d go to the gym just to get something to drink or snacks. And Klay would be there shooting. Before practice, always shooting. After practice, always shooting.
Loewen: In Pullman, we had 24-hour access to the practice gym. I was in there getting shots up one time, and he came in to get some shots up. He was like, “Hey, man. Want to get some shots up?” I swear to God he did not warm up. I don’t even think he stretched. We shot 10 3s from the five different spots around the arc, and he backed it up to NBA range, so he shot 50 3s. He made 48. With no warmup. From NBA range. I remember rebounding for him thinking, “This dude is different. He’s special.”
Ken Bone, head coach (2009-14): There were times where we didn’t use the scout team for offense, so we would split it. This group goes crimson; the other group goes gray. But all the sudden, when he’s on offense and you’re working on the defense, he would bury so many shots that we would have to get him out because he would just make so many shots I think guys lost confidence at what we were trying to teach. It was like, “You know what, Klay? Why don’t you take a rest here.”
Jeff Hironaka, assistant: We normally did not give Klay the toughest defensive assignment. I can remember him coming to me many times saying, “Coach, I want to take James Harden” or whoever. That’s how competitive he was.
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Lodwick: We were playing at Cal, and we ended up coming back and winning the game. It was late in the second half, and he got his finger caught up in somebody’s jersey and just dislocated it. It was at a right angle. The trainer popped it back in place, and he hit some big shots down the stretch. I think he’s a gamer, I think he’s a killer, and I think he does all the things he needs to do to help his team win.
Loewen: We were in practice, and it was later in the year. By that time, it’s a grind and guys get a little testy. I was a walk-on, and to say that I was a shit-stirrer, that’s probably fair. I had to, though. I wasn’t as athletic as those guys, so I had to have a little piss in me. I think it was a three-on-three drill, and Klay and I ran into the lane and neither one of us were looking and we ran into each other. We were walking back to the end of the line and he looked at me and goes, “Loewen, what are you doing?” I was irritated, and I snapped back at him. I said something to the effect of, “Fuck you, Klay. That wasn’t my fault.” So he snapped back, and he said something like, “Shut the fuck up, Loewen. Know your place.” And he was right. He was the superstar; I was the walk-on. This was our third year together. He and I were good buddies by that point. We separated and practice ended and I didn’t really think much of it. After practice, he came up to me and he was like, “Man, I’m really sorry. I should have never said that to you. You know I didn’t mean that, and you know I was just mad. You know I’d never say that to you.” And then we walked away, and that was it. The point of the story for me is he came up to me, the walk-on, and said that. How cool is that?
This is the part about the lost iPod/phone, other lost things and miscellaneous quirks.
Hironaka: We were at Arizona State and we’ve got to get on the bus and Klay is not there. We’re at this nice hotel, and now he’s late. We’re sitting on the bus waiting and waiting, and we don’t know what’s going on. Finally, he comes along and says he lost his phone. He just couldn’t go without it.
Enquist: He couldn’t find his iPod. He left it somewhere and he searched through his room forever trying to find it, and he couldn’t find it and was late to the bus. He finally made it to the bus and someone on it was like, “Hey, I have your iPod here.” He was upset, but he was actually kind of glad he got his iPod back.
Thompson to The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review after the game: I lost my iPod, so I was stressing there.
Capers: He probably misplaced his license legit 10 or 15 times that I can recall. He’d be like, “I don’t have my ID, man. I can’t find it.” Then I’d be like, “Did you find your ID?” He’d be like, “Yeah, man. It was under my bed or under my pillow.” I would be like, “Did you even look for it?!?” A lot of people would freak out. Klay would just be like, “It’s alright, man. I can replace it.”
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Enquist: Klay would lose his car keys. He would leave them in his car. Yeah, he would lose a number of things.
Bone: When I met him, he was just finishing up his freshman year. Well, my biggest concern was, “OK, is he coming back?” He went home for the summer and before he came back for workouts, there was about a six-week period and I called him four or five times. He never answered or returned a call. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, This is bad, bad news.” I finally called his dad and was like, “Hey, Mychal. What is going on? I hate to call you, but I can’t reach Klay.” He was like, “That’s just Klay. That’s just Klay. Don’t worry about it.” I was like, “Well, I am worried about it. He’s on the team and won’t return my phone calls.” But sure enough, he came back. He and I just laughed about it; he was so good, of course I was going to laugh about it.
Loewen: He got in trouble his junior year, and he was suspended for a game.
Bjornstad: It was a big time of the year. We were kind of on that first four out. When the event happened, everyone was upset. We were rolling and playing well. It was emotional Klay. I know he felt absolutely terrible.
Loewen: He apologized to the arena before the game. He had a microphone and the arena was packed and he apologized to the entire arena. Can you imagine being 21 years old and letting down an entire university and then getting on a microphone and having to apologize to them? We had announced the starting lineups and before the game the P.A. guy said, “Hey, we have an announcement to make,” and he gave the microphone to Klay and Klay apologized.
Moore: That was Klay in college when he was super quiet and super bad with the media. So for him to do that was a pretty big thing.
Loewen: Well, I actually started that game. Our starting point guard messed up his ankle ,and Klay was out. We lost to UCLA in overtime. That was a really emotional time for Klay. It was an emotional time for him, and he felt so bad. But that’s not the point of my story. The point of my story is, we played the game. I think I logged 22 or 23 uneventful minutes, and we lost in overtime. That was my first start and my first real minutes. After the game, we were walking out and he came up to me, put his arm around me and was like, “Man, I was so proud of you out there. I was just so proud of you.”
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Harmeling: My nephew had some pretty serious health stuff going on, and he’s a huge Klay fan. He just can’t believe that I played with him and I have to remind him, “I played with him, which meant he was on the court and I was on the bench.” But my nephew was in the hospital for a while, and so I asked Klay, “Hey, man. Is there any way you could just send an encouraging video to him?” Klay recorded himself and sent me the video and I forwarded it to my nephew. My brother filmed my nephew’s reaction to it. I will defend Klay to the day I die.
Moore: He changed my whole perspective on life. I live in Los Angeles now, and I had my business. And then I hit a low this summer, lost a lot of money; me and my girlfriend broke up, and I was going through it. I felt like I wasn’t living up to expectations. I could have been in the NBA, but now I’m back broke again. I’m comparing myself to all my other friends. Then we went to the Bahamas this summer, and he changed my life. He was just like, “This is perfect, just being with my best friends, being off the grid. This is all I need.” He kept emphasizing that. Klay doesn’t talk about his feelings ever like that, but four times I remember him saying that: Us on the boat one time, me and him floating out on the water one time, around the fire another time and another time was at night. It just clicked in my head. … He taught me how to be cool. He taught me how to play games with people. He taught me you can be your goofy self and laugh.
(Top photo: Dean Hare / Associated Press)
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