On July 6th, 2024, Klay Thompson, 4-time NBA Champion, 5 time All-Star, and a critical part of the Golden State dynasty in the 2010s, was traded to the Dallas Mavericks as part of a 6 team transaction. This was both surprising and unsurprising to the basketball world, because while it was hard to believe that Golden State would get rid of someone who was part of their franchise for so long, you could see that Klay was starting to reach the end of his career, the best exhibition of that being when he shot 0-10 in the elimination game of the play-in against Sacramento. So while it was sad to see Klay and his Splash Brother Steph Curry split up, I think that this separation could lead to another one of the NBA’s famous player rivalries, and then into even more viewership of the NBA

Player rivalries are an important piece of the NBA and its history. Coming into the 1979-1980 season, the two most hyped up players of the draft were Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird, who had competed in the 1979 NCAA Finals where Magic and Michigan State had won against Larry and Indiana State. The rivalry that brewed between the two saved the NBA from extinction, bringing more viewership and selling more tickets than ever before. Since then, rivalries between teams and players (like the Lakers and the Celtics or Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook) had made the NBA more interesting to audiences. That’s why when Klay left Steph and the organization for the younger, quickly rising Dallas Mavericks, everyone was anticipating when they would match up again. And sure enough, Steph was adamant on beating him and his new team, and won. The game averaged 2.14 million views on TNT, nearly double of the average amount of viewership.

I believe that even though the end of an era is over, I believe that this will bring even more people around to watch how the former “Splash Brothers” clash, because people love a good rivalry.