This was one of the most devastating losses any team in the NBA today could endure. The Golden State Warriors are going to be without their legendary point guard and pretty much their entire offense, Steph Curry, for weeks after his shoulder injury.
Like I said in the intro, there’s very few players who are as important to their, respective, teams than Steph Curry is with the Golden State Warriors. Curry has been the entire Warriors offense and sole perimeter scoring threat this season, despite being in the twilight of his career. It’s honestly incredible and kind of sad how reliant the Warriors still are on a 33-year-old, injury-worn Steph Curry in the year 2022.
We all know about the widely publicized struggles of the Warriors young core as Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, and Moses Moody have all reverting back to being bench players after the Warriors championship win, while James Wiseman has been demoted to the G-League.
Plus, with Klay Thompson as brittle as a cast iron skillet and Draymond Green more interested in getting Technical Fouls than points at this stage of his career, it’s clear to see why this Curry injury is a doomsday scenario for Golden State.
This unspecified shoulder injury (probably dislocated) is going to take off 30 PTS, 6.6 REB, 6.8 AST, 1.0 STL, and 0.3 BLK from the Warriors scoreboard for an unspecified number of weeks, despite the Warriors needing to post huge offensive stats to just squeak out wins. The Warriors 117.4 PPG is 3rd overall in the NBA, but the team is only in 10th place in the West with a 14-15 record.
With the Warriors losing Curry’s 30 PTS/GM, that would drop them to a horrific 87.4 PTS and the worst scoring offensive in the league by a country mile.
Obviously, that won’t happen as guys like Poole, Donte DiVincenzo, and Klay Thompson should be able to pick up some of the load in Curry’s absence, but how much of that load will be the million-dollar question? Or, rather, I should be saying the playoff question as this stretch of games without Curry will probably determine if GS even gets back to the playoffs to defend their title.
If Curry did suffer a dislocated shoulder (which looked very likely given his reaction to the pain and injury), I’ll give a rough and conservative estimate of a 6-week recovery period. That would mean that Curry wouldn’t suit back up for the Warriors until the end of January/early February, leaving Golden State’s roster to have to manage in 20-23 games in his absence.
Do I need to explain more why that’s practically a death sentence for this current iteration of the Warriors roster? If GS continues to play as badly as it has to open up the season without Steph in the lineup, I could easily see the Warriors losing 15-20 of those games and finding themselves well outside of the Top-6.
And, as we saw in 2021, the Warriors aren’t a team that can handle a Play-In tournament and the regular playoff schedule.
It’s imperative that Steph Curry makes it back from his injury, whatever it may be, as soon as possible or else the Warriors might be defending their championship title from the seats of their couches.
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