Curry to miss three months after surgery on broken hand.
Warriors star to be sidelined for at least 40 games; season in peril
SAN FRANCISCO >> Typically a neat and tidy area, Stephen Curry’s locker was symbolic of a season that quickly has unraveled.
The cheetah-printed Curry 5 shoes that the Warriors superstar was wearing Wednesday night sat unlaced on the floor by his chair. A pair of shorts hung haphazardly over a cup of coffee Curry never finished before heading to a hospital with a broken left hand suffered minutes earlier in a game against the Phoenix Suns.
Friday came the news that Curry will miss at least three months after undergoing surgery to repair the second metacarpal in his left hand. Curry, 31, will be reevaluated in February, meaning the two-time league MVP will miss 45 games, possibly more. Any hopes of a Warriors playoff run may be gone by the time he returns.
“I mean, it sucks. It’s tough,” forward Draymond Green said Friday before the Warriors played the San Antonio Spurs.
“Obviously it gets way harder without Steph.”
The injury occurred when Curry was fouled by Suns center Aron Baynes on a layup attempt in the third quarter. Curry fell to the floor, and the 6-foot10, 260-pound Baynes fell backward onto Curry’s hand. “It was just a random basketball play,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after the game.
The surgery on Curry’s non-shooting hand was performed Friday in Los Angeles by Dr. Steven Shin. Shin, widely regarded as a top hand specialist, performed thumb surgery on New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in September.
A team official said the extended timetable is not a precautionary measure but was Shin’s recommendation for a full recovery.
Three months is a longer-than-usual absence compared to players who recently suffered similar injuries. Last season, Lakers guard Rajon Rondo missed a month — 17 games — after undergoing surgery on his right hand. According to the sports injury site In Street Clothes, players who recently have undergone surgery to repair the same bone missed about a month of the season.
However, according to Dr. Maya Spaeth of California Center for Hand Reconstruction in Riverside, Curry’s three-month timetable isn’t unusual.
Recovery time for the second metacarpal — the bone of the index finger — depends on where the break occurred and if there was a dislocation or soft tissue damage, Spaeth said.
Healing after surgery typically takes six to eight weeks, with about another month of rehab to regain strength in the hand. If there is a dislocation of the bone in addition to the break, Spaeth said, recovery could take longer.
No matter how long Curry’s recovery takes, the Warriors’ season is in peril.
Entering Friday, the Warriors had the thirdworst net rating in the NBA and the league’s worst-rated defense. Curry’s absence puts the team’s middling offense in dire straights, as well.
Those are not the traits of a playoff team. They are indicators of a team bound for the draft lottery.
“Are things that have happened bigger blows to our chances? Absolutely,” Green said. “But as someone who’s healthy, I’m not like ‘Oh, it’s over for the playoffs.’ No, you go out there and play and try to win games, and whatever happens happens.”
Despite Green’s urgency, finishing the season with one of the worst records in the league could be exactly what the Warriors need to extend their championship window.
The Warriors traded their top-20 protected first-round pick in the 2020 draft to the Brooklyn Nets in the sign-andtrade for guard D’Angelo Russell. Now that pick almost will assuredly fall within the top 20, converting Golden State’s debt to Brooklyn into a 2025 second-round pick.
Last year, the NBA instituted more balanced lottery odds that give teams in the mid-to-late lottery a better chance to vault into a top-four pick.
If the draft happened now, the Warriors would have a 20.3% chance of landing a top-four pick and a 4.5% chance of getting the top overall selection. The last time the Warriors picked in the draft’s top 10 was in 2012, when they selected forward Harrison Barnes seventh.
Wherever the pick lands could help acquire a young, high-end talent for the Warriors to develop. Or, as the Los Angeles Lakers did with Anthony Davis, the Warriors could add the draft pick to a trade package that brings a more experienced, high-end contributor.
The lottery seems like a likely destination. Curry is the latest of the injuries afflicting the Warriors. Guard Klay Thompson is expected to miss most of the season as he recovers from a torn ACL, and center Kevon Looney is sidelined with a complicated neuropathic condition. Guard Jacob Evans will miss three weeks with an adductor strain. Center Willie Cauley-Stein and guard Alec Burks only just returned from injuries that kept them out all of the preseason.
Even Green, the last foundational player standing, has been nicked with elbow and back injuries within the first four games.
“As the season goes on you get beat up, and you get even more beat up as it continues to go and get deeper into the season. But that’s a part of it,” Green said. “Stuff like that is going to happen.”
All of it has happened so quickly for the once-dynastic Warriors. In a span of six games, the Warriors have lost Kevin Durant, Thompson and Curry to major injuries.
“It’s been kind of a crazy run. Especially if you lump it back together with the last couple games of last season and the first four of this one. Over that sixgame span, it’s just insane what’s happened,” Kerr said Friday. “We’ve had a lot of good fortune, too, here over the years, so we don’t spend too much time thinking about what it all means. We just push forward and try to do our jobs.”
“It sucks. It’s tough. Obviously it gets way harder without Steph.” — Warriors forward Draymond Green