SAN FRANCISCO — Stephen Curry is on track to rejoin the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night after a troublesome right knee kept him out of the past 27 games.
The 38-year-old guard told reporters Saturday that team doctors cleared him to face the Houston Rockets at Chase Center, although he will be listed as questionable until tipoff. Curry has been sidelined since Jan. 30 with what the club labeled “runner’s knee,” an issue he called “unpredictable” throughout a rehab that took far longer than he expected.
“I thought I was going to be out a week, 10 days max,” Curry said. “Every time I got on the court or tried to push it in that first month, there was always a reaction.”
The pain and swelling first surfaced on Jan. 24 during a workout in Minneapolis. Curry continued to play a few games before shutting it down. Rehab included several false starts, including a recent setback in Atlanta when discomfort returned late in a workout. Full 5-on-5 scrimmages this past week finally convinced medical staff he could return.
“Every day I wake up, the first thing I think about is how the knee feels,” he said. “As good as I feel now, I hope it stays that way.”
Curry stressed that no structural damage was found, but he conceded the condition represents a “new normal” he may have to monitor for the rest of his career. He has one season remaining on his current contract and has said he hopes to play beyond that.
Without their star, the Warriors went 9-18 and fell to 10th in the Western Conference with five regular-season games left. They are locked into the lower half of the play-in bracket and must win two single-elimination road games—likely against some combination of the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Clippers or Phoenix Suns—to reach the playoffs. Success there would set up a first-round meeting with either the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder or the surging San Antonio Spurs.
“Hopefully we win two play-in games, then we can have another conversation,” Curry said.
Head coach Steve Kerr never contemplated shelving the two-time MVP for the season. “He’s the greatest face of a franchise that I’ve ever seen,” Kerr said. “We owe it to our fans to give them the opportunity to watch Steph Curry play basketball this year.”
Source: ESPN
