Klay Thompson Mavericks Buyout: 'One of the Great Players' Joins Giannis Antetokounmpo at Heat

Klay Thompson is expected to join the Miami Heat on a two-year deal worth nearly $13 million after clearing waivers in the United States on Friday, with the 36-year-old sharpshooter set to link up with Giannis Antetokounmpo following a buyout from the Dallas Mavericks, according to ESPN's Shams Charania.

Thompson had been under contract with the Mavericks for one more season at $17.5 million, but he asked out after a grim 26-56 campaign and made it clear he wanted to finish his career chasing titles, not lottery odds.

Dallas formally announced the buyout on Friday afternoon, clearing the way for him to hit the open market and, effectively, choose his last big basketball adventure.

Klay Thompson Deal Caps Miami Heat's Sudden Superteam Pivot

Miami Heat, not exactly a franchise known for half measures, swung a blockbuster move for Antetokounmpo, then immediately put Thompson at the top of their shopping list. Thompson's deal, which includes a player option for the second season, is relatively modest by modern NBA standards, but the fit is obvious.

Miami have been hunting perimeter shooting to space the floor around Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo. Thompson, even at 36, still ticks that box. Across two seasons in Dallas, he averaged 12.9 points and shot 38.7% from three-point range, not quite peak 'Game 6 Klay' but still the kind of reliable threat defences have to respect.

He arrives in South Beach with a statistical résumé that remains quietly wild. Last season he moved past Damian Lillard into fourth place on the NBA's all-time three-pointers list and now sits on 2,899 made threes.

Seventy-five more will push him ahead of Hall of Famer Ray Allen, who has 2,973, and into third. After that, the climb gets brutally steep, with James Harden at 3,390 and former Golden State Warriors team-mate Stephen Curry miles ahead at 4,248.

The Heat are not paying for nostalgia alone. Thompson's gravity on the perimeter still changes how teams defend. Put Antetokounmpo charging downhill, Adebayo orchestrating from the elbow and Thompson camping in the corners or curling off screens, and opposing coaches will be up late with the whiteboard.

Mavericks Praise 'One of the Great Players' as Klay Thompson Exits

The buyout itself was initiated by Thompson, who informed the Mavericks he wanted to join a contender rather than endure another rebuilding season. Dallas, who had already stumbled to one of the worst records in the league, chose to accommodate the request rather than drag things out.

In a statement, Mavericks president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri tried to strike a balance between disappointment and respect.

'Klay is one of the great players and competitors of his generation, and we are grateful for everything he brought to the Mavericks organisation,' Ujiri said. 'We have tremendous respect for Klay and all that he has accomplished throughout his career, and we wish him nothing but the best moving forward.'

Reading between the lines, Dallas knew exactly what this was. Thompson is closer to the end than the beginning, and wasting one of the league's most decorated veterans in a 26-win season would have been bad optics and, frankly, bad human management. A buyout at least lets both sides pretend they got what they wanted.

Thompson's story before Dallas was already the stuff of league folklore. He spent his first 13 NBA seasons with the Golden State Warriors, where he became a five-time All-Star and four-time champion as one half of the 'Splash Brothers' with Curry.

That run was interrupted by two brutal injuries, a torn ACL and a torn Achilles, that cost him back-to-back seasons and would have finished off lesser players. Thompson returned, slower on defence but still deadly with his shot, and added another title before the Warriors finally pivoted away and sent him to the Mavericks in a sign-and-trade in the summer of 2024.

Even in Dallas, where the fit never quite clicked, he added to his legacy as one of the most prolific long-range shooters the game has seen. The counting stats back that up, but it is the reputation that really matters now. Teams still flinch when he rises behind the arc, and that half-second of panic is exactly what a player like Antetokounmpo feeds on.

Miami's roster makeover is as much about correcting recent disappointments as it is about chasing headlines. The Heat have spent the past few years stuck between gritty overachievement and painful inconsistency. Adding Antetokounmpo was the earthquake. Bringing in Thompson is the detail work that can turn a scary idea into an actual contender.

Of course, there are questions. Thompson is 36 and has a long injury history, and his defensive impact is not what it once was. Expecting him to hound point guards and chase wings over screens for 30 minutes a night would be mad. Miami's challenge will be to protect him on that end while milking every bit of value from his shooting and experience.

From the Heat's point of view, the risk is manageable. A two-year deal with a player option is short enough that everyone can walk away if the experiment fails. If it works, they have one of the best big-game shooters of his era on a team-friendly contract, surrounded by the kind of size and athleticism he never really had in Dallas.

Still, the broad outline is clear enough. Thompson asked out of a struggling team, sacrificed money for a realistic shot at another ring and chose to align himself with a new superstar in a city that loves big-time basketball. If nothing else, that makes the next chapter of his career a lot more interesting than a slow fade on a losing roster.