May 8, 2013; San Antonio, TX, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11) celebrates after his team

Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors scored 34 points and made eight three-pointers last night as the Warriors beat the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 100-91.

Thompson and Stephen Curry were unbelievable to start the game knocking down shots from the perimeter to help the Warriors jump out to a big first half lead.

Before the start of this season, there was a chance that Thompson could have been traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Thunder were shopping James Harden before the start of the year and were very interested in Thompson. The trade probably would have gone down if not for the fact that the Warriors would not have been able to offer Harden a max contract and couldn’t include a first round pick to send to OKC in the trade.

Would the Thunder be better off this season if they had Thompson instead of Kevin Martin?

Right now, it definitely feels that way. Thompson is emerging in these playoffs as one of the most talented, young shooters. He’s not just a shooter either and at 6-foot-7 has shown the ability to make plays off the dribble as well.

The Thunder have gotten stuck with the inconsistency of Martin this season. His unconventional offensive style has been prone to disappearing acts in big games or against elite defenses.

Thompson is just 23 years old too. The plan obviously would have been to make him a big part of the team’s long-term future. Martin meanwhile is an expiring contract that’s looking more and more like he will only serve as a rental for the Thunder this season.

Thompson never will demand the max contract that Harden did and the Thunder should have been able to pay and keep him down the road.

Watching Thompson in these playoffs gives the Thunder another thing to regret with this team.

Feb 5, 2013; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets shooting guard James Harden (13) warms up before a game against the Golden State Warriors at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

This past summer, the Oklahoma City Thunder were apparently shopping James Harden around the league seeing what they could get for him.

One of those teams that the Thunder were looking at dealing with was the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors have a bright, young two-guard in Klay Thompson that would have served as a very solid replacement for Harden.

The deal never went down for a couple of reasons:

1. Harden was going to demand a max contract and the only way the Warriors would have been able to give him one would have been to unload Richard Jefferson or Andris Biedrins to the Thunder as part of the deal as well, something OKC wanted no part of.

2. The Thunder wanted a first-round pick with the deal as well and the Warriors simply did not have one to offer, before 2015. They had sent their 2013 first rounder to Utah and teams are not allowed to trade consecutive first-round picks.

The Warriors did not turn down this potential deal. Not that it was close to getting done but there’s no way Golden State was saying “no” to essentially swapping Thompson for Harden.

If things were a little bit different, would this have been a better deal for the Thunder?

The Thunder got quite the haul from the Houston Rockets for Harden. Acquiring Kevin Martin helped them stay elite now and Jeremy Lamb is a rookie that looks to have tons of potential, although we have yet to see it in the NBA this year.

The first-round picks that the Thunder received from Houston was much more than Golden State would have had to offer. The only real difference is that the Thunder would have gotten Thompson, whose future seems pretty promising as he has proven a lot so far in his short time in the NBA.

Thunder fans shouldn’t feel like they missed out on this deal with the Warriors. You have to also even consider that teaming up Harden with Stephen Curry wouldn’t have exactly been a wise thing to do as that duo would have given the entire Western Conference fits for years.

The only regret the Thunder fans should consider is whether or not they could have kept Harden, even if only for this season. In terms of trading him, the Houston package was about as good as it could have gotten.

Irving was the Rookie of the Year and averaged 18.5 points and 5.4 assists per game this season in 51 games. He played only 30.5 minutes per game as he was on a minutes cap because of his injury while at Duke. He also shot .469 percent from the field, .399 from three and had a PER of 21.4.

Rubio took the league by storm in the first few months before tearing his ACL. He averaged 10.6 points and 8.2 assists in just 41 games.

Kenneth Faried and Klay Thompson were third and fourth and then there was a three-way tie for the fifth spot on the First Team between Iman Shumpert, Kawhi Leonard and Brandon Knight.

The second team consists of Chandler Parsons, Isaiah Thomas, MarShon Brooks, Derrick Williams and Tristan Thompson.

The only rookie for the Thunder this season was Reggie Jackson who was getting a lot of run as the backup point guard after the Eric Maynor injury and before the Derek Fisher signing.

Jackson played in 45 games for the Thunder and averaged 3.1 points in 11.1 minutes per game. He struggled shooting from the field at just .321 percent and .210 percent from downtown.