Caribbean Basketball Networks Coming Attractions Klay Thompson

When you’re one of the winners of one of the best genetic lotteries in the world, it might seem that it would only be elementary for you to ascend to the top of your respective sport. However, for Klay Thompson it wasn’t that quick or that easy. As recent as last year, the slept on, under-recruited shooter from the left Coast (California) wasn’t even ranked in the top 1oo players in America. Oh what a difference a year makes; Thompson combined one summer of hard work and playing with and against some of the best from across the Nation; He then topped it all off by winning the ultra tough (CIF) State championship for California. The Washington State Commit appears to stepping into a solid situation and says he is busy in the meantime preparing to make the most of it. In between time we caught up with the shooter extraordinaire for him to put things into perspective.

Caribbean Basketball Networks Correspondent: What’s going on mang, Welcome to Caribbean Basketball Networks.
Coming Attractions - Klay Thompson: Yeah dawg…Thanks, the pleasure is all mines.

Caribasket.net: First off, How did you do it…Go from an under the radar hoopster to one of the gems of the recruiting class at a nationally ranked top 15 program?
Klay Thompson: (Laughs)…It’s actually kind of humbling now that you put it out there like that. But I just went out there and worked. I had the opportunity of playing with a pretty good AAU team that made the Championship or Final four of a lot of national events and my recruitment took off from there basically.

Caribasket.net: Which AAU Program were you apart of?
Klay Thompson: Pump ‘N Run Elite….That’s really a West Coast based AAU program. I had the privilege of playing with a good group of guys; guys like (McDonald’s All American) UCLA signee Jrue Holiday, UCLA signee Reeves Nelson, Jimmy Henderson, Arizona signee Jeff Withey just to name a few. I also think I got a lot more comfortable, I definitely think I got better, but I think I got alot more comfortable….(laughs) so all that and everything from the past just coming together, alot of that helped me to catch the eye of individuals that weren’t really paying attention to what I could do before.

Caribasket.net: Who were some of the schools that were recruiting you from the get go and who were some of the ones that started to come on later?
Klay Thompson: Pepperdine, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Washington State were really the ones that were always there and showed the most consistent interest. Later on down schools like California and Kansas started to show some interest but I thought I would be best to stick with the programs that consistently went out of their way and showed me the type of interest that they really, really wanted me most. That and (Washington State University Head Man) Tony Bennett is a great coach. Really, the entire staff out there expressed to me the fact that I might be able to fit into their system really well so…it just seemed like an obvious choice.

Caribasket.net: Your team (Santa Margarita Hs.) won the ultra tough California Interscholastic Federation’s Title, how do you sum that up?
Klay Thompson: Wow…It’s still pretty unreal. Basketball in California is tough! You don’t get a break out here…i mean none from team to team. It’s crazy. In the championship we beat Mater Dei High school….That’s Former Duke player and Now Villanova player Taylor King’s old High school squad. We beat them and it was wild. Shoot!… Just getting there (to the championship game) was almost just as tough.

Caribasket.net: What are you doing in preparation for you hitting the college level?
Klay Thompson: I’m lifting every day and shooting everyday…My Lil brother is my rebounder…so there you go he gets some ink for feeding me the basketball (laughs)…but yeah I’m working out tryna improve everyday in preparation for me being there.

Caribasket.net: Finally any accolades that you accomplished on this past season?
Klay Thompson: Well, EA Sports Second Team All American, CIF First team All State, and the California State Player of the year for my classification were just some of them but really I’m just glad that someone saw my hard work to improve on this past summer and in the past and thought of me as being worthy of some recognition.