Former Warrior Klay Thompson will get a hero’s welcome in his first return to the Chase Center Tuesday night, with fans sure to give him a standing ovation, all wearing commemorative Klay hats. But Draymond Green says, “I’m running through his chest.”

Your Golden State Warriors are not where people thought they would be when legendary guard Klay Thompson returns to the Chase Center tonight for his first game against the Warriors in a Dallas Mavericks uniform. The defending Western Conference champion Mavericks are mired at .500, while the Warriors are a sterling 8-2, and a mere half-game out of the No. 1 seed coming into Tuesday night’s 7 pm Warriors-Mavericks game that will be broadcast nationally on TNT.

The Warriors will be playing the above tribute video on the jumbotrons tonight, and get a load of those images of “baby Klay” and his evolution through 13 seasons, four championships, five trips to the All-Star Game with the Warriors. The Chronicle also has the detail that the Warriors will be retiring Thompson’s No. 11 jersey once he calls it a career, along with the stunning factoid that Thompson is actually the Warriors’ all-time franchise leader in playoff games played at 158 playoff games (Steph Curry has played in but 147 playoff games for the Dubs).

The Warriors will also be giving out these commemorative Klay Thompson “captain hats” to every fan in attendance tonight.  

But Draymond Green sounds less sentimental about Thompson’s return with a different team.

“I’m running through his chest,” Green said in an interview last month that went viral. “He’s my brother, but he’s not with us. He’s not with us, he’s with the opps,” by which Draymond presumably means, “the opposition.”

Steph Curry was a little kinder in his own remarks.

“We’ve had homecomings before, but nothing like this,” Curry told reporters Sunday, according to the Bay Area News Group. “Level of impact and the brand of Klay in the Bay Area is something that I don’t know if any way I explain it would do it justice… You want to enjoy the moment of him getting the celebration he deserves. However it plays out, I just hope he feels the love because he deserves it.”

Warriors fans will remember Thompson’s all-time moments: his 60 points in 29 minutes in 2016, his series of Game 6 Klay masterpieces, his marine antics on boats. But his later years were so marred by long-term injuries and disastrous performances, so the change of scenery was probably best for both parties.    

Tonight is also the first game of the seemingly pointless NBA Cup tournament, formerly known as the In-Season Tournament. There is little meaning to any fans for this puzzling new NBA gimmick. But for Warriors fans, there will be great meaning to tonight’s emotional, sentimental game that just so happens to be the first game of that tournament.  

Related: Klay Thompson Is Leaving the Warriors, Heading for the Dallas Mavericks [SFist]

Image: DALLAS, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 04: Klay Thompson #31 of the Dallas Mavericks reacts during the first half against the Indiana Pacers at American Airlines Center on November 04, 2024 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)