Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) during an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, March 18, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Charles Krupa/Associated Press
If Stephen Curry is healthy enough to play for the Golden State Warriors again this season, Draymond Green won’t discourage his return despite their unfavorable position in the Western Conference.
As Green explained Wednesday following a three-point victory over the Brooklyn Nets at Chase Center: “I think it’s a slippery slope telling a guy who loves basketball, ‘You can’t come back to play basketball,’ if they feel like they’re healthy enough to play basketball.”
Curry missed his 23rd consecutive game Wednesday with runner’s knee and remains without a return-to-play date with nine games left in the regular season, including Friday’s versus the Washington Wizards. Golden State is 8-15 without Curry and bound for the play-in tournament again, trailing the eighth-place Los Angeles Clippers — with the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds facing double elimination compared to single elimination for the Nos. 9 and 10 seeds — by two games.
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The Warriors first hoped Curry would return last month after the NBA’s All-Star break, hoping again he’d scrimmage Sunday on an off-day in Atlanta in advance of a return, but to no avail. Green said if Curry has “an inkling of doubt” about the health of his right knee, he shouldn’t play, “but if he’s healthy and he can play” then “absolutely” he should play.
“That’s what you put the work in for,” continued Green, Curry’s teammate of 14 years. “You put the work in to give yourself a chance to have a great season. To get into the postseason. To flourish on that stage. You don’t know how many opportunities you get. You can always kick the can down the road and say, ‘Oh man. We’ll get back at it.’ But that don’t always work like that.”
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Even if Curry returns at full strength and finds his rhythm before the play-in, chances of the Warriors powering through it toward a playoff push seem bleak at best. Jimmy Butler (torn right ACL) is out for the season, as is Moses Moody (ruptured left patellar tendon), with Al Horford (right calf strain), Quinten Post (right ankle soreness) and Seth Curry (left adductor strain) mired on the sideline, too.
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But to Green’s point, there aren’t assurances of a play-in tournament berth next season with Butler and Moody likely due to miss significant chunks amid their recovery. Curry will be 39 when next season’s playoffs roll around and as this season demonstrated, health isn’t certain with age an additional risk factor.
Put simply: The chance to compete with significant stakes would appeal to Curry.
Never mind that the Warriors rate as one of the NBA’s worst teams without him (23rd offensive rating since Jan. 30, 21st in defensive rating) the past two months. So long as he’s on the court and in the lineup, they’re right to believe he can power them to victory.
“You just know he wants to play,” Green said. “He wants to be out there. … But I think where you get a little worried and you know he wants to come back and he hasn’t. That’s when you start looking at the clock tick … not from a standpoint of like, ‘Yo, when’s he coming back?’ But just like — I know he’s working to get back, and if not now, then what’s going on? I think you more so get a little worried but not from a standpoint of, ‘He’s going to save the day.’ (But) from a standpoint of like, ‘Oh, man. Your brother down. What the hell is going on?’”
If a return-to-play comes with unwarranted risk, then Green reaffirmed Curry shouldn’t play “whether we’re 35-38 or 58-12 — if you’re not healthy, got to play the long game.” Should the Warriors miss the playoffs, they’re bound for the NBA’s draft lottery — and with it a chance to inject them with youth (if they keep the pick instead of trading it) in one of the deepest drafts in recent memory.
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With Curry shelved and the Warriors reeling with their second-worst winning percentage under head coach Steve Kerr, Green is proudly bearing the onus of keeping them on track as best he can. His season, too, has been underwhelming (minus-114 in 1,645 minutes for Golden State’s second-worst plus-minus) in accordance with his future Hall of Fame standards, but his personal creed remains intact.
“You just can’t be the guy that quits when it gets tough,” he said. “I’ve had some incredible years here. Been a part of some incredible teams. … When that stuff is happening, you want to be at the forefront of it. You want to embrace it, enjoy it, all those things. It’s great. But when it goes a little left, you can’t jump off the train. You can’t walk around and pout. You can’t throw in the towel — or what was everything you did before?
“ … I’d rather go in and get my head beat in every night and walk off the court and go home to my family, my kids, wife and I always say — at the end of the day, the day’s going to end. But I can go home knowing, ‘All right, we won or lost regardless. But no matter the circumstance, I’m going to go out there and give what I can give.’ And with that, I can sleep at night.”