The Golden State Warriors’ road to the playoffs just got a little tougher.
Golden State’s superstar point guard Steph Curry is expected to miss an additional week of action after already sitting out the last seven days with a tailbone injury.
Curry underwent an MRI on Tuesday that showed inflammation in their prized veteran’s tailbone that the team didn’t want to take any chances with, leading to the team’s decision to keep him out for at least the next four games, head coach Steve Kerr told the media before Tuesday night’s 108-98 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
“We’re going to re-evaluate in a week,” Kerr said. “He got an MRI this morning and it showed inflammation in that tailbone. He had made some progress the first couple of days just resting and then he did a little bit more work [Monday] and was still pretty sore. So our training staff and Steph put their heads together and decided this is going to be a little bit longer than we thought and hoped. So we’ll re-evaluate in a week.”
The two-week absence will likely put the final stake in Curry’s dark horse candidacy for this season’s NBA MVP award, for which he’s now sitting at +2,500 NBA odds, good for a tie with Kawhi Leonard for eighth on 888sport’s NBA MVP odds table.
Curry sustained the ailment last Wednesday at the end of the third quarter of an eventual 108-94 win over the Houston Rockets after tripping over a riser following an off-balanced three-point attempt to beat the third q buzzer.
The Chef’s injury is just the latest in what seems like a never-ending string of availability issues for the Warriors, especially those that have been COVID-related. Up-and-coming big men Eric Paschall and James Wiseman have also been out for the past week as they go through the league’s health and safety protocols, but were back on Tuesday.
Kerr mentioned that he will be ramping up the playing time of the number two overall pick in this year’s draft, Wiseman, and expects him to start for the team as they fight for a spot in the Western Conference’s play-in tournament down the stretch. This announcement from Kerr comes after he publicly benched the rookie a couple of months ago.
“Earlier in the season when I made the switch to Loon, I felt like that was the right thing to do competitively and rotationally and I think we did pretty well,” Kerr said. “Our defense got a lot better, rotations improved, but this feels right now. This feels like the right time to do this. And it would be great for James to get a really good stretch here over the last 29 games.”
To have a real shot at a solid playoff run, the Dubs will need the best version of the soon-to-be 20-year-old Wiseman they can possibly get, the playmaking of Draymond Green to remain at it’s jaw-dropping levels, and Chef Curry to come back and return to his early-season MVP form. And even then, they’ll be in tough against the new giants of the Western Conference.
