Curry’s return on hold; so are Warriors’ hopes

The Warriors, who have forgotten how to win, will have to limp through the rest of the regular season without the man who taught them how to win in the first place, old Stephen Curry.

That whiff of desperation hovering over the Warriors got a lot stronger and more pungent Friday, with the announcement that Curry will sit out the team’s last five regularseason games.

The Warriors’ quest for another NBA title, which seemed fully legit in the first third of the season, has all but disappeared. They have just a puncher’s chance now, and that puncher has a gimpy fist.

Ideally, Curry would have returned in time to play at least a couple of regular-season games, shake off the rust, get his timing back, sync up with his teammates. So it sounds like planning his return for the start of the playoffs will be a fingers-crossed situation. Curry has made some dramatic comebacks from injuries, but this is a tough one. His whole game is based on hard cuts and half-court sprints, and his legs (and feet) are his springs for his jumper, especially his step-back. Can he do that with a foot that has been injured after being out of action for a month?

Silver linings? The Warriors, if they hope to get beyond the first round, are going to need important contributions from players who haven’t been in the playoffs, and who are new to contributing to a winning NBA team. Those fellows will get a few extra games to get up to speed, games in which they can’t wait for Curry to bail ’em out.

Jordan Poole has made a dramatic improvement, starting the season as a question mark but lately looking like one of the league’s emerging stars. He figures to benefit by staying in his go-to pointguard role for another two weeks, strengthening the confidence that has been growing quickly.

Rookie Jonathan Kuminga is going to have to contribute if the Warriors hope to advance in the playoffs, and he’ll get more of a chance to do that with Curry out. Kuminga has to replace some of Curry’s scoring load, and maybe two more weeks is enough time to move up the learning curve for Kuminga and have him playoff-ready.

It’s hard to see how else the Warriors might benefit from Curry being out. Klay Thompson is fighting to get out of a slump, head coach Steve Kerr says Thompson is pressing, and part of that has to be him trying to do more in Curry’s absence. The cure for Thompson’s ills would seem to be more Curry, not less. Draymond Green is showing signs of life after his long injury layoff and stretch of subpar games, but Green, like Thompson, is a better player when Curry is on the floor.

That’s not to say that Thompson and Green owe their greatness to Curry. It’s more that they are a three-man core, they all play beautifully off one another, and when one is out, the others are diminished.

When Curry returns, the Warriors will have to become a microwave team, going from raw to ready inside three minutes. They will have to compress an adjustment period that normally would take weeks into a game or two.

Despite the daunting task facing the Warriors, it’s possible to look at Friday’s news as good news.

There was the possibility that Curry’s recovery would take even longer, forcing the

Warriors to go into the playoffs without him. It now at least looks like there’s still a possibility that he will be coming back and playing more ball this season, pending a status update the Warriors will make April 11, immediately after the regular season. Last season, Curry — without Thompson and Kuminga, without Gary Payton II on the floor and without Andrew Wiggins playing at an All-Star level — almost got the Warriors into the playoffs.

The Warriors are such a mystery, collectively and individually, that you can’t write them off completely. You have to play what-if.

What if Curry comes back ready to rip? His teammates would be inspired and recharged.

What if Poole and Kuminga, with their leader back on board, get a shot of confidence?

What if Curry-GreenThompson see the opportunity to take an unexpected run, and they seize it?

It’s new territory. Before the previous two seasons, the Warriors under Kerr stormed into the playoffs as the favorite. This time they’ll be anything but that.

When the Warriors got the news Friday, they were already 1-6 since Curry’s injury, 1-7 if you count losing the game where he was injured. Three of those games, they could have won. Two of them, they definitely should have won. What they were missing was the player who taught the Warriors to win. For you optimists out there, the good news Friday was that there’s still hope that Curry will be back when the real festivities begin.