Here are Saturday’s G League assignments and recalls from around the NBA:
Stephen Curry has cleared another hurdle in his quest to return to action March 1, relays Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Team doctors cleared Curry for full contact and he participated in his first scrimmage today since breaking his left hand in late October.
Speaking with reporters afterward, the Warriors guard confirmed that he has set next Sunday as his target date to return to action. Although he will need another positive week of rehab to make that happen, all indications are that the healing process is nearly complete.
Curry explained the details of the injury, which involved nerve damage in addition to the break. That’s why his recovery time will be about four months, rather than the usual two when a clean break happens.
“This was a serious one that had a lot of nuances to it with the two surgeries and the nerve damage and stuff I’m still dealing with,” he said. “Everything is new. If it was an ankle thing, I’d tell you everything every step of the way.”
Curry also shared his memories of the play, which happened when Suns center Aron Baynes tried to take a charge on a drive to the basket. Both players fell to the court and Baynes landed directly on top of Curry’s hand, causing the damage. Because Curry is right-handed, the injury shouldn’t affect his shooting, but Slater notes that much of his game is based on the ability to dribble, pass and make layups with either hand.
“I’m getting used to what the new normal is,” Curry said of the recovery process. “It definitely feels different than the right (hand). But you try to get to the point when you’re playing basketball, you don’t think about it — whether it feels all the way same or not, it doesn’t really matter, as long as I’m not worried about the things I’m trying to do, the strength part of it and how it bounces back the next day after pushing it in contact stuff. … Anybody who has had surgery knows it takes a long time to get back to true normal. Functionally speaking, where I’m not out there on the court thinking about it, that’s where I’m trying to get it to.”
With Klay Thompson already sidelined with a torn ACL, Curry’s injury eliminated any chance the Warriors may have had to reach the playoffs. Golden State is focused on returning to title contention next season, and Curry believes the team added an important piece in the deadline deal that brought Andrew Wiggins from the Timberwolves.
“I’ve been watching and seeing what he’s capable of on a nightly basis,” Curry said. “He’s a walking 20 points. The intangibles he can bring, in terms of speed, cutting, length on defense, all those things, will be a fun process to build that chemistry. This is a 15-month journey to spring next year.”
The Warriors have officially ruled out Klay Thompson for the season, Nick Friedell of ESPN.com passes along. The shooting guard continues to rehab from a torn left ACL he suffered in last season’s NBA Finals.
“This is what I expected from the beginning given the severity of the injury,” coach Steve Kerr said. “And the normal timetable [for recovery], and so here we are. It’s no surprise.”
Golden State’s medical staff made the final call on Thompson’s season. He remains on track to play at the beginning of the 2020/21 campaign.
Thompson could be ready by the time the Olympics roll around in the summer and Kerr said the sharpshooter could very well suit up in the games.
“It’s not off the table,” the coach said. “It’s still a possibility. We haven’t really discussed it. I think the [Olympic] team meets in July, so it’s still quite a ways away. But it’s really not anything we’re discussing at this point. It’s still a possibility … obviously his health is the No. 1 concern, and so we’ll kind of cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Following a wild 2019 offseason, the NBA has been in a period of relative stability for the last several months. However, there are a number of tipping points on tap for the 2020 postseason and offseason that could re-inject some chaos into the basketball landscape, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN.com.
According to Bontemps, people around the league will be keeping an especially close eye on teams like the Rockets and Sixers, who will be looking to make deep playoff runs after falling short of their goals in recent years. If those two teams are eliminated early in the postseason, it’s possible major changes could be made, with Mike D’Antoni and Brett Brown potentially on the way out and roster shakeups around the corner.
League insiders will also be curious to see whether the Warriors look to use their 2020 lottery pick as the centerpiece in a trade for another impact player, Bontemps writes. Most notably, all eyes will be on Milwaukee as Giannis Antetokounmpo decides whether to sign a super-max extension with the Bucks. For what it’s worth, Bontemps says every executive he spoke to expects Antetokounmpo to remain in Milwaukee.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
Two-time MVP Stephen Curry practiced for the Warriors on Tuesday for the first time since he broke his left hand in October, writes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. It’s a positive step forward in Curry’s recovery process, though he hasn’t yet advanced to taking contact or scrimmaging.
“I don’t know when he’s going to be allowed to scrimmage,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “It’s not this week or anything. But he looks really good. He’s gaining strength, gaining confidence. He has been putting himself through some brutal workouts, so his conditioning is about as good as it can possibly be for somebody who hasn’t been able to scrimmage.”
Despite the Warriors’ 12-43 record, team owner Joe Lacob tells Mark Medina of USA Today that the idea of sitting Curry for the rest of the season is “not even a discussion internally.” Curry has been aiming for an early-March return, and while there’s no guarantee he’ll meet that target date, the Warriors are expected to re-evaluate him and issue an update on February 28, tweets Poole.
Kerr is looking forward to getting the star guard some minutes alongside newly-acquired forward Andrew Wiggins, as ESPN’s Nick Friedell details.
“I think it’s important for Steph and Andrew to get to know each other and to play together,” Kerr said. “I think it’s important for Steph to play without all the guys we’ve lost who are not gonna be back next year — Kevin (Durant) and Andre (Iguodala) and Shaun (Livingston). … He only got three games before his injury, I think it was, so it’s important for him to feel the difference, because it feels different for us.”
Meanwhile, Lacob hasn’t closed the door on the idea of Thompson making it back to the court at the end of this season, once he has recovered from his torn ACL. The team intends to re-evaluate Thompson this week, per Medina.
“Klay might come back for a few games at the end. He might not,” Lacob said. “That doesn’t matter so much. Maybe we’ll err on the cautious side. Maybe. That’s up to him.”
In spite of Lacob’s comments, Kerr isn’t counting on getting both of his veteran sharpshooters back in the lineup before the end of the 2019/20 season.
“With Steph, there’s a definite timetable,” Kerr said, according to Poole. “It’s easy to look and say that in a couple weeks, Steph is going to be ready to play. I don’t know exactly what day. But Klay is a long way from that. I don’t even entertain any thoughts of Klay playing this year.”
Rather than gearing up for another deep playoff run as the 2019/20 season enters its home stretch, the Warriors‘ decision-makers already have their sights set on this summer’s draft and the free agent period. While the team would rather be in the mix for another title, Warriors owner Joe Lacob tells Mark Medina of USA Today that the club is making the most of the opportunity to regroup and evaluate the roster going forward.
“The great thing about this is we can reimagine the next dynasty,” Lacob told Medina during All-Star weekend. “I think it’s been a good year for us to take stock with where we’re at and try to recreate.”
At 12-43, the Warriors are well out of playoff contention and approached this month’s trade deadline as sellers. Having given up six players, including D’Angelo Russell, Golden State received Andrew Wiggins, the Timberwolves’ top-three protected 2021 first-round pick, and five future second-round selections. The club also slipped below the luxury tax line, avoiding a more punitive repeater-taxpayer penalty.
Replacing Russell with Wiggins should give Golden State’s roster better balance when injured stars Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson return. Avoiding the tax and re-stocking their collection of draft picks will give the Warriors more options during the offseason as president of basketball operations Bob Myers and the front office weigh potential roster upgrades.
The Dubs also have a trade exception worth $17MM+ and are on track to secure a top-five draft pick. Lacob is optimistic that all those assets will be more than enough to help the Warriors return to contention.
“You add one guy and it can change everything,” Lacob told Medina. “We already happen to have two of the greatest shooters of all time. Look at the games. We’ve only been losing by six or eight points. But add those two guys, and we’re already pretty good. I think Wiggins is going to help a lot.”
FEBRUARY 19: Despite an earlier report (outlined below) that suggested Pargo would probably return to the Warriors, Anthony Slater of The Athletic (Twitter link) hears that the team is expected to sign new players soon to replace Pargo and Norvell.
That doesn’t mean that Pargo – or Norvell – won’t re-sign with Golden State later in the season, but it sounds like the team is casting a wider net as it evaluates back-of-the-roster players.
FEBRUARY 18: A pair of players on 10-day contracts with the Warriors saw those deals expire on Monday night, as guards Jeremy Pargo and Zach Norvell are now technically free agents. Golden State’s roster count has dipped back down to 12 players, and the club will have up to two weeks to return to the league-mandated minimum of 14 players.
Although the Warriors may not wait the full two weeks to fill out their roster, they seem unlikely to make a move for at least a couple more days, since their schedule doesn’t resume until Thursday against Houston.
There’s no guarantee that both Pargo and Norvell return for another 10-day contract – or a full-season deal – but Connor Letourneau of The San Francisco Chronicle suggests that Pargo’s time in Golden State probably isn’t over yet. A source tells Letourneau that the Warriors are expected to let Pargo finish the season on the NBA roster.
Pargo, who turns 34 next month and hadn’t played in the NBA since 2013, was an unlikely G League call-up for the Warriors, but he has played well in three games with the team, averaging 8.3 PPG and 2.7 APG with a .500 FG% and .429 3PT% in 14.7 MPG. As Letourneau relays, head coach Steve Kerr has been impressed with the veteran guard.
“You watch him play, and he fits,” Kerr said. “He’s an NBA player. It’s good to see him out there, and I’m glad we’re able to give him this opportunity because he’s earned it.”
While Pargo intends to play professionally for several more years, he’s not necessarily counting on this season as a springboard to further NBA opportunities, per Letourneau. The former Gonzaga standout says he’s just trying to “enjoy the moment” with the Warriors and see what happens next. According to Letourneau, Pargo has already emerged as a respected elder statesman in Golden State, where he’s the oldest player on the roster.
“The biggest thing for me is that guys like Jordan (Poole) and Ky (Bowman), they really listen to what I have to say,” said Pargo, who has played in just 86 total NBA games. “They don’t go, ‘Oh, you’re not this or that.’ They listen, and that means a lot.”
New Warriors wing Andrew Wiggins, the centerpiece of a trade that sent D’Angelo Russell to Minnesota, is off to an excellent start with his new team, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Wiggins, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA draft, is a reclamation project in what amounts to a redshirt year for Golden State.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr is grateful to have part of a season to develop Wiggins in the 12-43 Warriors’ motion offense before Golden State’s Big Three of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green is fully reinstated next fall.
“He’s a great weapon to have, and we’re still learning how to use him,” Kerr said of Wiggins. “We’re going to experiment with some things the last couple months of the season.” The 12-43 Warriors have ruled Thompson out for the entirety of the 2019/20 season.