On the eve of the opener in Los Angeles, Steve Kerr told the San Francisco Chronicle that “he’s shown the last couple of years he can still be Steph — he just can’t be Steph as often.”
That raises the real question: should Golden State limit Curry by sitting him out of whole games, or by trimming his minutes on the nights he plays? The plan Kerr described picks the first option, and it’s the right one.
Last Season Shows What Unplanned Absences Cost
Kerr is not planning a minutes cap. He said the team is trying to find a balance where Curry “can still be in rhythm and be ready to play 32, 34 minutes without all the load that that comes.”
That’s more than his 30.9 minutes per game in 2025-26.
Cutting minutes has already been tried, and it didn’t protect him. Even at about 31 a night, Curry missed 27 consecutive games last season while dealing with patellofemoral pain syndrome, commonly known as runner’s knee, and finished with his fewest games in an 82-game season.
That’s soreness that builds up over time, not one bad landing. The sensible fix is less total wear, which is why the team is going after practice reps and back-to-backs instead of fourth-quarter minutes.
His production also says the minutes are worth keeping. In those 43 games he averaged 26.6 points and shot 58.4 percent on 2-point attempts.
A player that efficient should be on the floor at the end of close games, not on the bench to save five minutes.
Every Night Off Costs Wins
The best argument against the plan is the standings. Golden State went 37-45, finished 10th in the West and lost in the play-in tournament to the Suns. The Warriors went 13-25 in the games Curry missed.
When he sits, the Warriors mostly lose.
The roster around him makes that worse. With Jimmy Butler, Moses Moody and Kristaps Porziņģis all out indefinitely, a planned rest night now means playing without four of the team’s best players, not one.
Kerr has even told fans to check the schedule before buying tickets. On a team this thin, someone could reasonably argue that 28 minutes on more nights beats 33 minutes on fewer.
That argument doesn’t hold up, though. It assumes cutting minutes would keep Curry available, and last season showed it doesn’t. A planned night off costs one game. A flare-up of the same knee cost 27 in a row.
Kerr Has the Structure Right
SES’s answer: the Warriors have the right plan. The trade-off is simple. A few chosen rest nights, most of them on back-to-backs, cost far less than another month-long absence.
Curry thinks he can play “at least” 65 games this season, and that’s the number to judge the plan by. Getting 65 games at 32 minutes would add about 20 games to last season’s total, and on last season’s record, those extra games decide whether this team escapes the play-in.
Preseason doesn’t prove much. He logged 64 minutes across four preseason games, including 20 points in 26 minutes in Golden State’s 128-118 win over Portland.
He also sprained his right ankle at practice Sunday, though Kerr later said Curry was fine. So far the slow ramp-up has gone as Kerr laid it out. It hasn’t been tested yet.
Two things would change this verdict. If the knee flares up again before the All-Star break even with fewer practice reps and few back-to-backs, then spacing out his games isn’t enough and the Warriors need to cut his role, minutes included.
And if the rest nights leave the team buried well below .500 by January, that becomes the urgent problem. Until then, scheduled rest nights are cheaper than a repeat of last season.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
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