The Steph Curry Leg Watch is now officially a sideshow, commanding substantial attention around the globe and generating deafening buzz on social media. Required hourly updates can’t be far behind.
The worry within Dub Nation has reached epidemic levels. It’s hard to walk a block in the Bay Area without a Warriors fan asking, “Hey, is Steph going to be OK?”
Yes, folks, he is. The 6-foot-3, 185-pound point guard can play through this shin contusion because by all accounts he’s not risking further injury and, above all, he is a lot more tenacious than he looks.
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Yet the anxiety is understood. It’s hard not to worry about injuries to an NBA player that looks like Curry.
His physique is lean, almost skinny. He models clothing for the young male demographic. His face is cherubic and his skin tan and smooth. His general disposition is unfailingly polite. Moreover, there is the sweet shooting stroke and the sheer elegance that defines his overall game. All of it begs to be labeled as “soft.”
Though some of this assumption goes back to the ankle issues that plagued him a few years ago and frightened people into thinking he’s destined to be delicate, some of it is benign stereotype.
Pretty player? Must be soft.
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Wrong. Could not be more wrong. Ask any of his teammates to identify something most people may not realize about the reigning MVP and the response just might be unanimous.
“His toughness,” Draymond Green told me.
“His toughness,” Shaun Livingston told me.
There was palpable anxiety among the fan base Tuesday night when Curry came down limping after his shin slammed into Lakers center Roy Hibbert. It looked bad. Curry was in obvious pain.
Three minutes later, after a timeout during which he spent pleading his case to remain in the game, interim coach Luke Walton allowed Curry back on the court. He scored four points during his final three minutes of action.
Not until the Warriors were up by 30 and the game safely won did Curry leave the floor. He sat out the fourth quarter, as he likely would have anyway.
He did not limp as he walked toward the locker room.
Curry got hit in a place that has been sore for a week. That’s always going to hurt.
“If it was 100 percent and I got kicked there, it probably wouldn’t have the same effect,” he told reporters in Los Angeles. “But since it’s not, there’s still a little bit of swelling and a contusion, it’s more prone to not take a blow very well.
“It is what it is and we’re just going to keep treating it and keep playing.”
There is no structural damage. Walking and running won’t increase any risk. Curry is not on the injury list for the game Friday at Portland. He expects to start. Shin wrapped and padded, he might just go off for 40 points.
Curry said the team’s training staff told him it could take up for four weeks for the contusion to fully heal. Every time he takes a blow to the shin – whether it’s on the court or bumping into a chair in a dark hotel room – it slows the healing process.
Curry knows it’s going to bother him. He may sit out a game or two, here and there, but he was emphatic in saying he will not sit out for four weeks. It’s not an option. Ignore what he looks like and take the man at his word.