Klay Thompson took a careful look at PlaqueBoyMax's basketball skills during a livestream and let him down gently.
At the end of a Twitch stream on Aug. 14, after Thompson and the popular content creator had already run through a three-point shooting contest, PlaqueBoyMax asked the Mavericks player to rate the level he could have reached in professional basketball. The four-time NBA champion gave him a thorough, if slightly deflating, answer.
"Wow, if you stuck with it, bro... D1 is tough. Like, I don't think people realize how hard it is to be a D1 hooper. There's only like maybe a couple thousand of them," Thompson said. "Bro, you could have been a pro. I think you could like... NBA... Nah. But like, there's a lot of professional leagues around the world, bro.”
Thompson continued by giving the streamer some props. “You got the athleticism, you're throwing down, a nice jump shot. You could have played pro somewhere, for sure,” Thompson continued. “You could have played pro, probably in like... yeah, you know, like third division Italy or something.”
Italy's top-flight basketball competition is the Lega Basket Serie A. Third division — around the Serie B or Serie C level — sits well below the European elite.
PlaqueBoyMax took the assessment in stride but immediately pushed back on the ceiling. "Damn, I can't even get the EuroLeague, bro," he said.
"EuroLeague’s tough, man," Thompson replied.
The streamer then pivoted to EuroLeague's pedigree, noting that Luka Doncic came up through that system. Thompson confirmed it: "It did. Luka, Pau..."
The stream covered more than PlaqueBoyMax's basketball future. Thompson also addressed his own NBA situation. “I want to compete for a championship, not necessarily win one, but just have the chance to go and try and get another one,” he said. “I want to play a role on a team that can make a deep playoff run, whether it’s this season or next season. That’s really my only goal.”
Thompson is entering the final year of his contract with the Dallas Mavericks, a deal that pays him $17.5 million this season. Dallas signed Thompson in 2024 partly on the draw of playing alongside Doncic, but the Mavericks subsequently traded Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers, leaving Thompson on a rebuilding roster centered around Cooper Flagg.
