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After four months, we finally have the NFL's cream of the crop. Twelve teams embark on a playoff journey for the right to call themselves champions and hoist the Lombardi Trophy in February at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is making "good progress" on his shoulder injury and will be re-evaluated in two weeks, Kendra Andrews of ESPN reported Saturday.
Curry suffered a left shoulder subluxation during his team's Dec. 14 game against the Indiana Pacers, which came with a reported recovery timeline of "a few weeks," per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
The guard was relieved the injury didn't require surgery.
"Surgery would've been 4-6 months," he told reporters. "Nobody was trying to deal with that right now."
Curry is a difficult player to replace considering his production as an eight-time All-Star and two-time MVP. He was named Finals MVP last season after winning his fourth NBA title.
In 26 games this year, the superstar guard is averaging 30.0 points, 6.8 assists and 6.6 rebounds per game.
With Curry unavailable, the Warriors have turned to Jordan Poole and Klay Thompson to take on bigger roles in the backcourt.
Golden State has still lost three of its four games since Curry's injury, falling to 15-18 on the season. The squad is currently in 11th place in the Western Conference.
The Philadelphia 76ers won their fourth straight game with a 118-106 victory over the Stephen Curry-less Golden State Warriors on Friday at Wells Fargo Center.
Jordan Poole's 29-point night wasn't enough for the Warriors as the duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden took over down the stretch.
Embiid finished with 34 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, four steals and two blocks in 36 minutes. He made 11-of-23 shots from the floor and 2-of-3 shots from deep. It was his sixth straight game with 30-plus points.
Harden, meanwhile, finished with 27 points, nine assists and five rebounds in 37 minutes, making 8-of-15 shots from the floor and 4-of-8 shots from behind the arc.
NBA Twitter was quick to praise the veteran big man for his performance against the reigning champions:
When Embiid plays this well, the Sixers can compete with any team in the NBA. Come the end of the season, the big man might very well be MVP for the first time after finishing second to Nikola Jokić in 2021-22.
The Sixers moved to 16-12 with the win. They'll be back in action at home Monday against the Toronto Raptors.
Draymond Green owes plenty to Stephen Curry seeing how the all-time great guard has helped lead him to four championships, but one performance, in particular, stands out from the 2022 NBA Finals.
During an appearance on Throwing Bones for Uninterrupted, Green opened up about his own struggles at Boston's TD Garden and how Curry helped him break out of it.
"At Game 3, I was f--king rattled," Green said. "I heard everything you could possibly hear in that arena."
The Michigan State product noted fans in Boston called him the N-word on multiple occasions as he finished a Game 3 loss with just two points, four rebounds and three assists.
"I've been booed damn near in every arena in the NBA, that was a different thing," he said. "So going into Game 4 down 2-1, I'm just like I just need to come in here and stabilize myself. Shoutout to the GOAT Stephen Curry because in Game 4 I still wasn't myself, but I rallied enough to be better. And then he carried me."
Green had just two points on 1-of-7 shooting from the field in Game 4, although he impacted the contest in other ways with nine rebounds, eight assists and four steals.
Golden State also earned a 10-point win because Curry was brilliant with 43 points, 10 rebounds and four assists behind 14-of-26 shooting from the field and 7-of-14 shooting from deep. Green recognized that he would have been the target of plenty of criticism with another loss and was thankful for his teammate's clutch showing.
"His performance was all so I didn't get murdered," he said. "… If we would have lost, I would have gotten murdered."
It put Curry on track for the first NBA Finals MVP of his illustrious career.
The pairing has won four championships together and, along with Klay Thompson and head coach Steve Kerr, form the backbone of Golden State's modern-day dynasty. Defeating the Celtics was quite the challenge, although Green settled in as the series continued.
He threatened a triple-double with 12 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, two blocks and two steals in the closeout performance in Boston during Game 6.
But he certainly hasn't forgotten Curry's showing in Game 4.
While the Golden State Warriors will be without Stephen Curry for at least two weeks because of an injured left shoulder, the two-time NBA MVP was happy to learn he wouldn't need surgery.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Curry described feeling a sense of relief after an MRI determined surgery wasn't necessary.
"Surgery would've been 4-6 months," he said. "Nobody was trying to deal with that right now."
Per Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, Curry will be reevaluated in two weeks after suffering a labral injury in his left shoulder.
The injury occurred in the third quarter of Golden State's 125-119 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday. Curry attempted to swipe the ball from Jalen Smith with his left hand, but he pulled his arm back and immediately grabbed his left shoulder.
Curry was on pace to have one of his best games of the season before the injury. He finished with 38 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in 30 minutes. The eight-time All-Star is tied for fifth in the NBA in scoring average (30.0 points per game) and is having a 50/40/90 season.
Losing Curry makes Golden State's attempt to climb up the Western Conference standings much more difficult. The defending NBA champions are 14-15 this season.
Jordan Poole, who has started each of the past six games, will likely see his playing time increase. The 23-year-old has been playing well, averaging 24.0 points on 44.3 percent shooting over his previous seven games.
Klay Thompson is also rounding into form after a slow start. He's making 44.2 percent of his three-point attempts in 10 starts since Nov. 20.
The Warriors could help offset the loss of Curry by improving on defense. They rank 15th in defensive rating (113.0) and 26th in points allowed per game (116.8).
Based on the two-week timeline, Curry will miss at least seven games. The earliest he could return is Dec. 30 for a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Go ahead and smash those Golden State Warriors panic buttons you've been staring at, maybe even nervously thumbing, for most of this season.
Stephen Curry is set to miss "a few weeks" after suffering a left shoulder injury on Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. He isn't expected to need surgery and will be re-evaluated in two weeks, per The Athletic's Shams Charania.
The Warriors are now free to enter Existential Crisis Mode accordingly.
Full-blown dread is not a knee-jerk overreaction to Steph's injury. The absence of a concrete timetable beyond "a few weeks" does little to assuage fears. Frankly, this ambiguous wording and lack of context only amplifies the cause for alarm.
Maybe "a few weeks" really is just a few weeks—as in, like, two or three. We know that's not how re-evaluations work, but for argument's sake, let's say he's back in that time. Great. Grand. Wonderful.
One thing, though: The Warriors don't have "a few weeks."
They sit one game under .500 at the time of this news, clinging to 10th place in the Western Conference and what would be the final play-in spot. Optimists will note that they are a mere five games back of the first-place—checks notes—New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies. Cool. Realists will (rightfully) counter by pointing out the Dubs are only 4.5 games in front of the 15th-place San Antonio Spurs.
This is all to say: Golden State's margin for error does not exist. The NBA is enjoying thermonuclear levels of parity right now, and the Warriors burned whatever breathing room they had on juggling (read: fumbling) visions of two timelines and on rest nights and off-efforts they weren't and still aren't actually good enough to have:
Going "a few weeks" without Steph in this competitive climate can absolutely torpedo the Warriors' already-fragile season. They can barely survive even a few minutes without him.
Golden State has outscored opponents by 145 points in the 894 minutes he's been on the floor. And it has lost the 503 minutes he's spent on the bench by 127 points. Steph's overall net-rating swing is still one of the six largest in the league, regardless of playing time, and the Warriors see both their offensive rating (17.8-point drop) and effective field-goal percentage (8.3-point drop) descend into hopelessness when he's on the sidelines.
Theoretically, this is why you extended Jordan Poole on a nine-figure deal. There is no replacing Steph's impact, neither on nor off the ball. And no team in the league is built to withstand the loss of 30.0 points and 6.8 assists on 66.8 true shooting, endless three-point volume and range and defense-warping movement.
Still, Poole is supposed to represent the pinnacle of Golden State's multi-timeline project, the ascending star who's both ready now yet not anywhere near his prime. The idea of his ball-handling and finishing and self-creation and table-setting should be the vehicle through which the Warriors navigate Steph's stint on the shelf.
In practice, though, Poole isn't ready. At least, he's not playing like it.
Career-high usage is accompanied by a personal-worst turnover rate and his lowest true shooting percentage since he was a rookie. His three-point clip has dipped below 32 percent for the year and has hovered beneath 30 percent for more than half the season. His 53.4 percent shooting inside the arc is a breath of fresh air, and he's knocking down 67.2 percent of his looks within five feet since mid-November. But there is more variance caked into his perimeter game than ever.
Poole posted an effective field-goal percentage of 48.3 on his pull-up jumpers last season—unspectacular but not necessarily dire. That number has plunged to 42.4 this year. Equally problematic, Poole has gone from burying 37.9 percent of his catch-and-fire triples to just 34.7 percent. And he's been even worse since mid-November.
Granted, the best version of Poole hasn't routinely qualified as an offensive lifeline independent of Steph. Look at where Golden State's offense has ranked during Poole's solo minutes the past three years:
This is not Poole's failure alone. More than anything, it reiterates the immense and immeasurable value of Steph. This season, especially, it's also an indictment of the front office and its decision to tether too much of the second unit's livelihood to prospects and unprovens and JaMychal Green.
To their credit, the Warriors have discovered some semblance of balance by adding Draymond Green to bench-heavier combos. They have actually outscored opponents by 4.3 points per 100 possessions, with a top-tier defensive rating, when he headlines Steph-less lineups. Jonathan Kuminga is coming along, at both ends, too.
That's big. It is not a panacea.
There's a difference between surviving extended stretches against non-starters and turning this setup into your entire existence. And that's before accounting for Andrew Wiggins' own absence. He hasn't played since Dec. 3 after suffering an adductor injury.
More urgently than ever, the Warriors must now look inward and decide, once and for all, whether it's officially time to look outward.
If they care at all about this season, about respecting Steph's timeline when he returns, they will make a trade. It doesn't necessarily need to be for a star. They might have the ammo, but that market doesn't seem to exist right now.
Targeting flat-out upgrades is fine. A stretchy big who can still move to pair with Kuminga, depth and size on the wings and, of course, another ball-handler or self-starter who doesn't crimp the spacing would all be essential additions. But the Warriors must commit to ponying up for them.
Maybe that involves selling low on James Wiseman, who got recalled from the G League on Thursday, or Moses Moody. Perhaps it involves flipping a draft pick. Or draft picks, plural. (Kuminga should be off-limits in non-star trades.)
Surrendering any one of these chips or some combination of everything will sting. Parting with Wiseman, specifically, mandates a level of self-awareness the Warriors brass has not yet indulged—an admission that, yeah, they f--ked up in the 2020 draft, and then again over the 2022 offseason by still not doing something about it.
That's hard to do under any circumstances. It's even tougher when you're talking about turning a 21-year-old No. 2 pick into someone like Josh Richardson or Kelly Olynyk or P.J. Washington or Mo Bamba or Eric Gordon or Jae Crowder. It's much less painful if that someone is on the scale of, say, Myles Turner. But you're not getting him for Wiseman and filler alone.
There is, of course, a chance the Warriors take the more patient approach. They could use Steph's absence to double-down on self-exploration and see what they have without their franchise lifeblood and hope they'll have enough time upon his return to put it all together.
They could also just not care what becomes of this season. They own their first-round pick and aren't exactly worlds away from spiffy lottery odds. Prioritizing development for prospects and unknowns and then rest for the vets in the name of an impromptu gap year is technically on the table. They could then recalibrate over the offseason, with a better idea of who they are outside Steph and another glitzy prospect to peddle or groom.
This latter scenario would certainly be a choice. Klay Thompson turns 33 in February. Green turns 33 in March and hits free agency at season's end (player option). Steph will celebrate his 35th birthday in March, as well. Golden State's core is not designed to just punt on another year and regroup.
That's the dilemma, the same as it's ever been: The Warriors cannot cater to one timeline without entirely jeopardizing or damaging the other. There might be a right answer (maximize Steph's window), but there's not an easy one.
Whether Golden State even has a choice anymore is debatable. There's nothing it can do without Steph to improve its position. Anything the Warriors do will be meant to bide time and re-optimize the roster once he's back. But how can they do anything, at all, without knowing for sure how long the one player they couldn't ever afford to lose will be sidelined?
Truthfully, the Warriors already made their decision. They opted for dual agendas, and in doing so, they missed their window to make a move, expand their margin for error and maybe, possibly withstand a blow such as this.
And their season may have just ended because of it.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering Thursday's games. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry will miss "a few weeks" after suffering a left shoulder subluxation during Wednesday's loss to the Indiana Pacers, per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported Curry suffered a labral injury and will be reevaluated in two weeks. Charania added that surgery is not expected to be needed, with the Warriors star expected to be out "closer to a month":
Curry suffered the shoulder injury while trying to make a play defensively:
The guard was ruled out for the rest of the game and underwent an MRI on Thursday.
Despite minor knee and ankle issues this year, Curry has not missed more than one game in a row this season.
The Warriors will remain cautious with the superstar, who has often missed long stretches due to injury in his career. He missed the final three weeks of the regular season last year after suffering a foot injury, while a broken hand cost him all but five games in 2019-20.
Another long-term injury could be especially damaging for Golden State after an up-and-down start to the season. The team currently sits in 10th place in the West with a 14-15 record.
Curry remains productive individually, averaging 30.0 points, 6.8 assists and 6.6 rebounds per game this year.
The eight-time All-Star added his first Finals MVP award last season, and he is clearly not slowing down on the court. It makes him even more difficult to replace after an injury, but Jordan Poole and Donte DiVincenzo should see increased responsibility going forward.
Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry has been ruled out for the remainder of Wednesday night's matchup with the Indiana Pacers after suffering a shoulder injury. Head coach Steve Kerr told reporters he would be undergoing an MRI on the shoulder on Thursday, and was in "good spirits" after the game.
The two-time league MVP immediately grabbed his left shoulder after reaching for the ball while the Pacers' Jalen Smith drove to the basket. Curry exited the game with 38 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.
Curry has posted 29.6 points on 49.7 percent shooting (43.2 percent from three-point range), 6.8 assists and 6.6 rebounds this year.
The ex-Davidson star averaged a team-high 25.5 points for the Warriors en route to leading the squad to its fourth NBA title since 2015 last season. He capped off the year with the NBA Finals MVP award.
Obviously, losing the two-time NBA MVP and eight-time All-Star for any amount of time is a significant blow to Golden State.
The Warriors were a far better team with him in 2021-22, going 45-19 with Curry on the court and 8-10 otherwise. He notably missed the final 12 regular-season games with a sprained ligament in his left foot but returned for the team's championship run.
Two years before, Curry nearly missed the entire 2019-20 season with a broken second metacarpal bone. The Warriors went a league-worst 15-50.
This Warriors team is far better equipped to handle missing Curry, but it will still be tough to go without him.
Sans Curry, the onus will be on Jordan Poole to run the point alongside backcourt mate Klay Thompson. In 2021-22, Poole notably averaged 25.9 points starting the final 15 regular-season games, 12 of which were without Curry. Donte DiVincenzo should also see more playing time.
Expect Draymond Green to do more facilitating as well.
