Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors All-Star guard, has been sidelined due to injuries to his left leg, the team announced Sunday. It is unclear how long Curry will be out due to his injuries.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Curry likely would have gotten even worse news if he hadn’t seen the results of Monday’s MRI, which revealed partial tears to the superior tibiofibular ligament and interosseous membrane, as well as a contusion to the lower leg. After Curry appeared to buckle while playing defense during Saturday’s game against Dallas, he left the game with 2:01 remaining in the third quarter of the game after he initially injured his left leg in Thursday’s game against Denver – the same leg that he wound up with on Saturday.
In apparent discomfort, he immediately began hopping and left the game immediately following, refusing to return. In the wake of announcing he won’t play Monday against Oklahoma City, Curry, who averages 29.4 points per game this season, now appears to be a very likely candidate not to play in the All-Star Game in two weeks. Commissioner Adam Silver will select a replacement for Curry, and any other 24 players selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game if Curry will be unable to play in the Feb. 19 contest. A formula was used to select the starters, which consisted of fans, media, and NBA players voting.
As of Monday afternoon, Curry has already played 14 games this season, missing 11 games with a shoulder injury from Dec. 16th through Jan. 7th during which the Warriors went 6-5. There are five games left before the All-Star break, so Curry should be back in action soon. There is very little room for error when it comes to the Warriors, like many other teams in the Western Conference. Golden State is 27-26 on the season and entered Sunday as the seventh seed in the Western Conference – three games behind the third-place Sacramento Kings but only one game ahead of Portland in 11th.
Each conference will have a maximum of six teams to qualify for the playoffs. The teams that finish seventh through tenth in each league will go to a play-in tournament to decide the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the brackets for their respective conferences.
