Steve Kerr said Stephen Curry is “fine” after the Warriors guard left Sunday’s open practice with an ankle issue, giving Golden State an encouraging note three days before Wednesday’s opener against the Lakers.
The important detail was the body part. Early reports from practice pointed to Curry’s right knee, but the team later clarified that the tweak was to his right ankle. Kerr said he talked with Curry after practice and repeated the same message: “He’s fine.”
That update clears up the immediate concern, but it does not amount to a formal call on Curry’s status for Los Angeles. Golden State has identified what happened and shared Curry’s reaction, but Kerr did not attach a recovery timetable in Sunday’s comments.
There was already a broader plan in place for Curry before the ankle tweak ever happened. The Warriors had been easing him into the year, trimming some of his practice load and taking a slower approach to his ramp-up. Kerr also floated the idea that Curry could start the season below roughly 32 minutes per game.
Curry himself addressed that approach earlier in the week in an interview with Luca Evans of the San Francisco Chronicle.
“But I’d rather (play) 65, whatever, games, 70 games, with the big picture in mind,” Curry told the Chronicle.
Those remarks were made before Sunday’s incident and fit into the bigger picture of how Golden State has been managing him, not into a new injury concern.
Kerr also had another health update to offer Sunday: Charles Bassey is day-to-day with knee tendinitis. That matters because Golden State had just been evaluating different frontcourt looks, including a preseason finale on Friday in which Bassey started next to Draymond Green, with Curry, Brandin Podziemski and Yaxel Lendeborg in the lineup.
The Warriors had wanted another look at Green with a center, and Kerr said he planned to play the starters around 25 to 30 minutes. Earlier in the week, he had been leaning toward a smaller group against the Lakers, with Green at center, Curry, Podziemski, Gui Santos and Lendeborg filling out the five.
Kerr had also explained that bringing Al Horford off the bench could help keep his minutes around a target of 20 per game, while giving Golden State the option of having Horford or Green organize the defense for longer stretches.
So the Lakers have more than one thing to track here. Curry’s ankle is the headline, but Golden State’s center rotation remains unsettled as well. Friday’s lineup and the earlier preferred group show the alternatives Kerr has been weighing, though neither one locks in Wednesday’s starters.
Los Angeles has its own availability question in the backcourt. In a Thursday update on Collin Sexton, Lakers coach JJ Redick said the guard had been doing drills but had not yet returned to live work while recovering from a lower-leg injury. Redick described him as moving toward opening night.
For now, Curry’s update is the reassuring part. Whether that stays the same will depend on what Golden State says next about his practice status and his availability against the Lakers.
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