Could Stephen Curry's shoulder injury push the defending champion Golden State Warriors into the play-in tournament for the second time in three years?
Although ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Curry is expected to miss "a few weeks" rather than months after suffering the injury (diagnosed as a subluxation) in the second half of Wednesday's lopsided loss in Indiana, the Warriors no longer have the margin for error they had last season, when they had the league's best record at 24-5 at the same point -- 10 more wins than this year.
The most troubling part of Golden State's below -.500 start is that Curry has been almost entirely healthy during it. He's missed just three games thus far -- all losses. The Warriors were 8-10 without Curry last season, and won 70% of games (45-19) with him in the lineup.
Given Golden State is currently in play-in territory, 10th in the West entering Thursday's action, even a wobble over the next three weeks could make it difficult for the Warriors to make up ground in a conference where nine teams are currently .500 or better. So how big an impact might Curry's absence have?
Warriors need more from Poole
Despite Golden State's middling performance, Curry has been playing at an MVP level this season. Missing multiple weeks will affect his candidacy for the moment, though it might not necessarily end it if other top contenders also miss time.
With Curry on the court, the Warriors have been a top-tier team, outscoring opponents by 7.0 points per 100 possessions according to NBA Advanced Stats. That's not quite as good as last season, when Golden State had a plus-10.7 net rating with Curry, but the real decline has occurred with him on the bench.
Last season, with Jordan Poole stepping forward as a playmaker, the Warriors were nearly even when they played without Curry (minus-1.4 net rating). So far in 2022-23, with Poole slumping from 3-point range, they've been blitzed by 11.1 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the bench.
Recently, Golden State has somewhat remedied its second-unit woes by pairing Poole with Draymond Green. Lineups including both players but not Curry have a strong plus-6.6 net rating, according to Cleaning the Glass data, as compared to a ghastly minus -11.4 when Poole plays with neither Curry nor Green.
With Poole likely to continue starting in Curry's absence -- he's been in that role the last six games, five of them with Curry, due to other Warriors being out of the lineup -- he'll inevitably share the court with Green and Golden State's other productive starters.
The big challenge for coach Steve Kerr over the next few weeks will be managing Poole's rest. The Warriors have played just 74 minutes all season with neither Curry nor Poole on the court, per analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats. Ty Jerome, who's on a two-way contract, has played the point for the bulk of those minutes.
We could see Golden State's perimeter rotation get particularly thin on back-to-backs because Klay Thompson has yet to play in both ends of them since coming back from ACL and Achilles injuries last season. Without Thompson, the Warriors will need to get rotation-caliber play from second-year guard Moses Moody, who's been in and out of the lineup.
Crowded West projections
Before Curry's injury, Golden State still had plenty of time to make up ground in the West standings. Because the Warriors had the conference's fourth-best projected record entering the season, FiveThirtyEight's current projections had Golden State finishing fifth on average prior to any word on Curry's status.
Projections using ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI) weren't quite as optimistic, with an average finish of seventh, but still gave the Warriors about a 40% chance of avoiding the play-in.
More importantly now, both FiveThirtyEight and BPI forecast tight standings where a win or two could make a substantial impact on postseason outcomes. FiveThirtyEight had Golden State atop a group of six teams projected within three wins on average between fifth and 10th in the conference. BPI's projections had the Warriors in the middle of a similar band of six teams separated by a little more than three average wins.
Both projection systems agree that Denver, Memphis, New Orleans and Phoenix -- currently in the top four spots in the standings, with the Suns tied for fourth alongside the Portland Trail Blazers -- have the best chance to earn home-court advantage. If that happens, it leaves just two guaranteed play-in spots for the other six teams. The Los Angeles Lakers are also in the mix to steal a play-in spot.
Odds are it will probably take at least 48 wins to avoid the play-in. If Golden State is still mired below .500 by the time Curry returns, the Warriors will need to win about two-thirds of their remaining games to get there. That's a better pace than Golden State managed in 2021-22, although slightly behind where last year's champs were when Curry played.
But each additional loss the Warriors suffer over the next few weeks will make it that much harder for the Warriors to get back in the West's top six. So Curry's absence, while likely short-term, could be costly.