Steph Curry ruled out for the regular season

In the second dramatic announcement today of an NBA player being out for the season, the Golden State Warriors announced that star Steph Curry will not play again in the regular season.

Curry has been out since March 16th, when he left the game against the Boston Celtics after guard/kickboxer Marcus Smart dove into his legs going for a loose ball, then celebrated by jump-kicking Klay Thompson. This guy hates Splash Brothers! Steph has been rehabilitating the sprained ligament in his left foot since then, and as of yesterday, he was still wearing a walking boot on that foot.

This news means that Steph will miss the final five games of the season - the Dubs close out the schedule on Sunday, April 10th, and the next update on Steph’s injury will come the day after, on April 11. The play-in tournament runs April 12-15, and the first round doesn’t begin until that weekend, so Wardell could theoretically get in a full work week of practice before the first round starts. Based on last year’s playoff schedule, where the 4th-seeded Clippers had two days off after their first two playoff games, Curry would likely have two weeks from the end of the regular season before Game Three of the first round.

While the best-case scenario had Curry returning for a game or two at the end of the season, this update isn’t particularly discouraging or surprising, at least to Coach Steve Kerr.

It wouldn’t be the first time Curry had to fight his way back from an injury in the playoffs either. In 2016, he sprained his ankle in the very first game of the playoffs, missed two games, and returned to sprain knee on a sweat-slick court in Houston during Game Four of the first round. He returned 15 games later, came off the bench, and ended up scoring a playoff-record 17 points in overtime against the Portland Trail Blazers, part of his 40 points.

In 2018, Curry sprained his knee three weeks before the end of the season when center JaVale McGee fell into him. This time he missed the Warriors’ first six playoff games, a 4-1 first round victory over the San Antonio Spurs, and the first game of their second round matchup with the New Orleans Pelicans. Again, he came off the bench in his return game, and again, he got up to speed very quickly, scoring 28 points off the bench, including 5-10 shooting from three-point range.

While the Warriors’ diminishing title aspirations are all but non-existent without a healthy Steph Curry, they do finally have all their other injured players back in action, save James Wiseman, who exists more as a theoretical concept than a basketball player at this point. Could this team win a championship without Steph? Not a chance. But could they hold their own against the Utah Jazz or Denver Nuggets, with Jordan Poole leading the way as the Splash Little Brother, for two or three games before Curry comes back to reinforce them? That seems very doable. And as he’s shown over the years, Steph is not going to need a ton of time to warm up.

As for the other announcement, LeBron James cemented his claim as the Corniest Of All Time with an April Fools Day tweet announcing he was also out for the season.

We’re sure Lakers fans really appreciated this hilarious prank while they’re holding onto a play-in spot by their fingernails at 31-45. Also, everyone knows LeBron needs to play three more games in order to qualify for the scoring title, clearly the only thing he’s cared about for months, aside from making dad jokes on Twitter. It’s even lamer than his April Fools Day “joke” from 2014.

Michael Jordan would never.