SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry will miss at least six more games as he continues to deal with a lingering runner’s knee injury and will be re-evaluated in 10 days, the team said Wednesday.
The Warriors said that Curry, who turns 38 on Saturday, is making “good progress” in his return and has started to do some individual on-court work. Those workouts will continue to “intensify” as long as Curry’s knee continues to feel better while he ramps up his rehab.
Curry has not played since leaving a loss to the Detroit Pistons early on Jan. 30. He has missed the last 15 games and is now on track to miss at least six more.
The hope within the organization was that the two-time MVP would be able to return after the All-Star break, but that didn’t happen as he continued to deal with pain in his knee. The Warriors have gone 5-10 in Curry’s absence and have slid to ninth in the Western Conference standings, 1 1/2 games in front of the Portland Trail Blazers. Their next game is Friday at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves, after which they embark on a six-game East Coast road trip beginning Sunday night at the New York Knicks.
The reality for the Warriors (32-33) is that even if Curry can return soon, their place among Play-In teams is unlikely to change in either direction. They are now six games behind the seventh-place Phoenix Suns with 17 games left to play. It’s a place that Warriors coach Steve Kerr and his team have been resigned to for the last couple of weeks as they have held out hope that Curry can return.
The Warriors know that they always have a chance to win when Curry is on the floor, and are not yet seriously considering the possibility that he could be ruled out for the season. Curry still wants to play — as evidenced by the work he is putting in behind the scenes — and the team would at least like to get a look at how he looks playing alongside new acquisition Kristaps Porzingis.
Beyond that, as the standings illustrate, only tanking and/or bad teams remain behind the Blazers in the standings. There’s only so far the Warriors could drop, even if they wanted to. The Memphis Grizzlies, currently in 11th place in the West, are 23-41 and have already made deals to ensure they can continue losing down the stretch.
Ideally, the Warriors’ front office would like Curry to come back, see if they can win a few postseason games, and provide a little momentum heading into the offseason. But given that the Warriors just lost back-to-back games to the tanking Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls, it is clear that they have to play almost perfectly without Curry to beat any team.
The good news for the Warriors is that six of their last 17 games are against tanking and/or bad teams. In the short term, as Curry continues to be out, look for Kerr to continue to rely on a trifecta of guards in Brandin Podziemski, Pat Spencer and LJ Cryer to help set up the offense. As Kerr has shown in recent games, he will go to whichever one of the three is playing well at the moment.
The return of Curry, who is averaging 27.2 points this season, can’t come soon enough for the Warriors. But even the magic he provides on the floor won’t be enough to lift them out of the standings predicament they find themselves in.