The third time isn’t the charm for Stephen Curry.
On Thursday night against the San Antonio Spurs, the Golden State Warriors guard re-injured his surgically repaired right ankle for the third different time since the start of the season. And now not only is the injury hampering the Warriors slow start to their 2-4 season, but it just might blow any chance the team has at landing Dwight Howard in a reported deal with the Orlando Magic.
“This is the worst it’s been,” said Curry, writes Matt Steinmetz of CSNBayarea.com.
“I’m sure it has to do with the fact it’s the third time. It’s hard to say how it will react. … But it’s just Déjà vu again for me.”
Golden State’s second-leading scorer with 14 points per game, Curry had to be helped off the court by the team trainer after he appeared to have landed wrong on the same ankle repaired last May. Curry is now expected to miss Friday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers and the Warriors will re-evaluate him on Saturday. In the process, Golden State’s front office will also have to re-evaluate how they proceed in luring Howard from the Magic, particularly since Curry is a major piece to a puzzle that’s suddenly moved from jig-saw to jacked-up no thanks to Curry’s ankle woes.
“I think it’s obvious that our ownership would like to come up with a superstar to add to this team,” said Golden State general manager Larry Riley of the reports centered on trading for Howard.
“We’ll always look into opportunities where someone might be available.”
The trade would send Curry to Orlando for Howard and the hefty $34 million left on Hedo Turkoglu’s contract. The back-up plan would switch out Monta Ellis for Curry. Even then the Warriors are stuck: not only do they risk the chance of renting and losing Howard to free agency, but they equally must address Curry’s long-term health woes and the realities of building around a gimpy young guard.
And no, continuing to list Curry as “day-to-day” is not the answer either.
Golden State has already tried that.
Sad to say, but it’s time to shut down Curry for a few weeks and also the longing idea of luring Dwight Howard to the Bay Area.
