Will Andre return in seven days? Or is something more going on?

Andre Iguodala hasn’t played a single game for the Golden State Warriors this season. He’s officially dealing with a left hip injury, but we all know he’s doing the Warriors’ training staff’s favorite activity: Ramping up. But a cryptic tweet from Iguodala seemed to suggest that Andre might be making his season debut soon.

Seven days from November 4th is November 11th, when the Warriors will host the red-hot Cleveland Cavaliers at the Chase Center. It’s a natural time for Iguodala to return: Friday night, hot crowd, traditional rival against whom Andre won a Finals MVP, in the middle of a stretch where the Warriors won’t leave the West Coast for two weeks. He could come back for the Kings game on Monday night, but honestly, if they can’t beat the Sacramento Kings at home, the Warriors might as well pack it in for the season. It also aligns with what Iguodala told reporters last week: “I’ll be there when I’ll be there. The plan is in place…I think we kinda know, so we got a target date.”

However, this is Andre Iguodala. He delights in being cryptic, and it would be unlike a 38-year-old who appears on the injury report more often than Steph Curry appears in self-deprecating used car commercials to set a firm date for his season debut. Iguodala still looks absolutely ripped, but “ripped” also describes many of his tendons and probably at least one hamstring.

So let’s look at the other possibilities.

Andre has watched a cursed videotape

This is unlikely, and not just because it is the plot of the 2002 smash hit horror film “The Ring.” Even if there were a videotape haunted by the ghost of a vengeful child who was murdered in a well that murders you seven days after you watch it, Andre is tech-savvy. You think he still has a VHS player? Blu-Rays only, or some movie you only can watch in the metaverse.

Andre is announcing some tech IPO or new cryptocurrency or an NFT of an ape that’s basically a JPEG but it costs $60,000

Probably the most likely scenario. Andre is an investor in Dapper Labs, who created NBA Top Shot collectibles, along with CryptoKitties, and probably CyberDawgs, DigiGoldfish, BlockChainDolphins, and the wildly unpopular 56KModemSkunks. Maybe the breakthrough is his company has created really engaged, passionate, and not-at-all Bored Apes, and rich dorks are going to flip out for them.

Andre is shouting out the Biblical creation of the world in seven days

Which technically means that on the seventh day he would continue resting, so Moses Moody would get his minutes?

Andre is listening to “Seven Days,” the Bob Dylan song originally released by Ron Wood in 1979

Unlikely, but Andre refuses to be pigeonholed in any way, particularly musically. Dylan originally recorded the song in 1976, but didn’t release any version of his own performance until over a decade later. In that time, Ron Wood put out his version, as did musicians ranging from Rob Stoner to Joe Cocker. Perhaps that’s a metaphor for Andre’s season: letting others play, while he waits until just the right time. The bridge to the song goes:

There’s kissing in the valley, thieving in the alley, fighting every inch of the way

Trying to be tender, with someone I remember, in a night that’s always brighter’n the day

Obviously, “the valley” is Phoenix, thieving in the alley is the Warriors’ propensity for turnovers, and fighting every inch of the way...that’s a 3-6 start. Trying to be tender with someone I remember - is that regaining his trust with Draymond Green? And the night being brighter than the day? That’s just NBA basketball, baby. In this interpretation, Andre will be back for the next game in the Valley - November 16th in Phoenix.

Andre is counting down to Veterans Day, AKA, the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles

In the Warriors’ current four-game skid, they’ve been victimed by a variety of players. Franz Wagner of Germany scored 19 points when Orlando beat the Warriors. Killian Hayes, who used to play professionally in Germany, had five assists in Detroit’s victory over Golden State. Max Strus (German name), Duncan Robinson (German face), and Gordon Hayward (1930s German haircut) also lit the Warriors up this week. So perhaps Andre Iguodala is honoring our nation’s veterans while reminding his German rivals of the humiliating signing of a peace treaty inside a boxcar.

Andre is teasing the next episode of The Point Forward

Not to minimize the difficulty of rehabbing injuries and getting into NBA shape, but Andre has time to podcast. So there’s no excuse for his podcast, The Point Forward, to have gone over a month between new episodes (September 23-October 28). He’s going to drop a new episode, which may not return the podcast to its classic once-a-week format, but getting another one on the podcatchers within two weeks is going to keep advertisers like Stamps.com and Blue Apron meals off his back.

Andre is excited for the Black Panther sequel

This is the one. Andre can’t wait to see who eats the heart-shaped herb and assumes the mantle of Wakanda’s protector, not to mention how the film will deal with the death of T’Challa (off-screen, tastefully, he hopes), and whether the cinematic depiction of Namor will be accurate to Jack Kirby’s comic book version. Wakanda Forever!