Getty Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors and Tre Mann of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The February 9 trade deadline will be crucial for the Golden State Warriors, as their team has been underperforming this year. But despite that, and an injury to Stephen Curry on top of it, they still managed to grind out a huge win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on February 6.
Klay Thompson put up an impressive a game-high 42 points, and after the performance, Curry showed his long-time teammate some love.
“That boy gooooood!” Curry tweeted.
In addition to his 42 points, Thompson also put up three rebounds and an assist. He shot 15-of-22 from the floor and 12-of-16 from behind the three-point line.
It was recently announced that Curry would be out for multiple weeks while dealing with a leg injury he sustained in the Warriors’ February 4 win over the Dallas Mavericks. Curry bumped knees with McKinley Wright IV during the game and missed the remainder of the contest.
The day after Curry injured his knee against the Mavericks, the Warriors received some brutal news regarding his return timetable. Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that he would miss multiple weeks.
‘“Golden State’s Stephen Curry is expected to miss multiple weeks with a left leg injury, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium,” Charania tweeted.
This is the second time this season the Warriors will have had to deal with a major injury to Curry. The superstar point guard was out from December 16 to January 7 while dealing with a shoulder injury. In that time, the Warriors went 6-5, but in total this season, Golden State is 7-8 without Curry.
Now, the Warriors will have to attempt to keep their heads above water in the playoff race with Curry sidelined. They currently sit at 28-26 on the season, which is good for seventh place in the Western Conference Finals.
Draymond Green Discusses Warriors Trade Plans
With Curry out, making a trade could prove to be even more important for the team’s title hopes this season. However, veteran star Draymond Green doesn’t necessarily believe the Warriors will make any moves ahead of the deadline.
“If I’m being honest, it feels like one of those deadlines where everyone is expecting everything to go haywire and not much is going to happen (across the league),” Green told Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “That’s what I think is going to happen. For me, I’m in this locker room with these guys I play with. We’ve never been a team that moves much at the trade deadline. So I’m not going into this deadline expecting some big moves or something. I don’t know. If it happens, it does. But I’ve been here 11 years and I think we’ve made moves two or three times. We haven’t done much.”
Warriors Have ‘Painful Decisions’ to Make
However, if the Warriors want to compete for a championship, they’ll need to make some tough choices. And according to David Thorpe of True Hoop, those “painful decisions” are the exact ones that Golden State will be forced to make.
“There’s an argument, of course, for the Warriors to exercise patience through the postseason,” Thorpe wrote. “Don’t forget that their starting five from last June—Curry, Thompson, [Andrew] Wiggins, Green, Looney—has the second-best net rating among all starting lineups this season. Maybe the young guys can figure it out. If not, take a first-round loss on the chin, and then put everyone but Curry up for grabs this summer. They could renovate quickly by cashing in on big names, even if it cost them next-stage darlings like [Jordan] Poole, Wiggins, or Kevon Looney. Not sure how Dubs Nation would feel about that, but no matter what happens, painful decisions are coming.”