The only thing that I think is "clear" is that you read into Thompson's comments what you wanted to. I think that you'd already made up your mind about Thompson, and that everything you heard just reinforced what your already thought. If you heard what he said and your takeaway was that the "upshot of his beef" was that he wants more shots, then you probably went into it with an agenda. Thompson has a lot of flaws, not the least of which appears to be an inflated sense of his worth as a player, but that was more a part of his problem than the central thesis.
I don't think it's a mischaracterization at all to say that he's frustrated with having been on a losing team and a coaching carousel. Why would it? What part of that assessment doesn't apply to Jason Thompson? What part of it isn't true? Why should we believe that he wasn't clearly told what his role was? Why shouldn't we believe it? Why should we believe that Thompson is lying? Has Malone ever said that he told Thompson what his role was, or was he speaking in generalities? Reggie Evans doesn't have to be told what his role is: you can look at Evans play for five minutes, and figure out what his role is: he's going to chase down rebounds, and that's about it. He's going to hustle on defense, but ultimately not be super-effective.
Thompson is a little harder to nail down: he's an adequate defender, an adequate rebounder, and adequate scorer, etc., but he doesn't have any elite skills. After you account for all the roster turnover this season, Thompson was, effectively, our second-best shooter from 3-10' (after Gay), as well as, effectively, our third-best shooter from 16'-3pt line (after Thomas and Cousins)... and yet, he wasn't quite good enough for "mid-range shooter" to be his defined role. He was second in DWS, third in BLK%, fourth in DRB% and TRB%, and tied for fifth in DRtg... and yet, he wasn't quite good enough for "defensive stopper" to be his defined role, either. He's not really good enough at anything to have a defined role, at least, not as a starter. As opposed to Evans, who has one elite skill, and is not good enough at anything else to even tempt you to try and have him do something different. Thompson's best role would be as a utility (read: third) big and, unfortunately for both us and him, he has only been allowed to play it once, when we had Dalembert; the rest of the time he's been here, he's been expected to do more than his skillset would suggest is reasonable.
I don't really think that the comments about shots are out of bounds, either. I mean, let's face it: when you're on a perennial lottery team, you should feel like there's more you can do to help the team, and you might feel that there's more than you're being allowed to do that can help the team. When a guy's field goal percentage goes up from the year before, and his scoring goes down, and the team is losing, I don't think it's unfair for him to say he might have been able to help out with a few more shots. Haslem's name was brought up more than once, but it's one thing to ask a guy to play like that when the team is winning, and the ball is moving, but it's an entirely different proposition to expect somebody to do that on a twenty-eight win team, when he sees that his teammates are playing selfishly. You look at guys around the league that you would, presumably, want Thompson to be more like: Haslem, and Splitter and Wright, etc., and what those guys all have in common is that they don't play on teams that don't share the ball, and they haven't played for five coaches in six years.
Ultimately, as Xiang Yu might have said, I don't think we've met the "real" Jason Thompson yet. Ideally, I'd like to see D'Alessandro sign a player that can be the defensive anchor we need as a starter, and place Thompson in the role he belongs in; only at that point, will we see the real Jason Thompson.
