Stephen Curry knows he will have the greatest burden of his NBA career placed upon him this season, tasked with being the leading scorer of a Golden State Warriors team with very few familiar faces and a bevy of questions to answer without Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson on the mend for half of the season.
The Warriors will need Curry on the court more than recent years, but it's how he handles the toll of his high-usage that will determine how often he will suit up for this team in a long 82-game season.
“We’ll see. I’ll have to listen to my body,” Curry told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. “I know how the playoffs felt last year when KD was out and having to get your rest and your recovery and being able to play at that level. But I’m pretty smart around understanding exactly how I can be at my best and sustaining that over the course of the year. I’m obviously not going to play 82 games, but whatever the intensity is out on the court, I’ll be ready for it.”
If Wednesday night's preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers was any indication, the Warriors are a completely different team without Curry's gravity on the floor, no longer able to spread the floor or create opportunities for easy looks.
Golden State will be largely dependent on Curry suiting up game after game to have a chance to sniff the playoffs, so if he can manage to pace himself just right to have some fuel left for the end of the season, the Warriors could survive a monstrous Western Conference until reinforcements come around at the All-Star break.
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