Steph Discusses Injury, Warriors Playoffs Hopes | Feb 13, 2023

Hi Steph. First off, how are you doing and just where are you at in terms of your rehab process? I'm doing great. Hope you're doing well as well. Where am I at? Just all stuff that's not involving the court and basketball related activities yet. So a little ways away from that but every day has gotten better. It's a slow kind of process early letting everything kind of settle. Letting the healing process start. The goal right now is just to try to let it heal while you maintain as much of your strength and conditioning and keeping everything as active as possible around the injury and then hopefully soon I can you know get back on the court and start doing basketball stuff and slowly build from there. Do you have a target, not like return night necessarily, but like timeline that you think you can come back in? No because it's all dictated around how this heals. This was different than like the shoulder where it was pretty predictable where I'd be able to get to a point where I could play and not re-injure it or put myself in jeopardy out there on the floor. This one's different because ligaments can heal all different types of timelines. So there's like a window for each checkpoint. Like after all-star break I want to hopefully get back on the court and then depending on how things go from there you can start to key in on a specific date to get back. It would, I mean especially the way you're talking, it'd be fair to assume you will miss a chunk of games post all-star break. I don't know how you define a chunk but yeah I won't be playing against the Lakers on the first game bet. It seems like it's a rare-ish injury or just kind of strange. What, I know you're not a doctor either, but I guess what if they kind of told you about this injury and I know in that Denver game it looked like you kind of banged it, was feeling some discomfort. Do you know if that played any factor into then? Similar mechanism I guess but different. It had nothing to do with the other side. It was more so the force of the contact of Wright's knee into my shin, how much weight I had on it, how it was positioned. So it was a pretty big knock that kind of jolted the bone and the ligaments in there which was all the terms that I didn't know existed before kind of described the injury. So it was just the timing thing like if my foot's elevated and it's just more like a contusion and you can kind of deal with it. But because my foot was playing and there's a lot of weight on it and the force of the impact it was a little bit more serious than I wanted it to be. To kind of follow off of Kendra's question, you know, what was that pain level right away? Like what were your feelings, what were your thoughts when that first happened? At first it felt like it was normal contusion, just a real serious one. So I went to the bench and thought I could kind of just shake it off. Then I got up from the bench, felt something different. I was like no that's not that's not right. So we went back to go check it and did all the tests on it. I knew it was something more than just a normal contusion because I couldn't put any weight on it and was kind of hobbling around. But thankfully there weren't any broken bones or anything. Just the ligaments are kind of dicey just because you, like I said, you don't know how long it'll take for it to really get truly healed so that you can get back out there. Because it's not something you can play through if it's not healed. This is obviously the second time you've missed some games and now the team's at 500. Just got past the trade deadline. I know it's hard to have all these things on your mind but where are you feeling this team is? Obviously trading James Wiseman, who is going to be a big piece of the future, getting GP2 back, who you guys know so well. Just what's your sense of where the team is right now? I mean it's just about trying to just figure out how to just win the next game. I think it sounds boring as that is. It's really all we can really focus on right now because of the injury to myself. The whole GP situation that we've gone through the three days. Our guys battling every single night trying to build momentum, find a little bit of separation in the standings but more just a little bit of an identity of who we are as a team this year. So all those things are kind of floating around. Very optimistic that hopefully we can finish these last two games strong, get to the all-star break, get refreshed mentally, physically. Guys have been through so much these last couple weeks. Come back and just find a way to get out of that playing kind of congestion in the standings and see where it goes from there. Because I know we're a different team than we were last year. I know we have different challenges than we did last year but it still has been proven that if we're healthy come playoff time and we have a shot to get into a series that we're tough out. So that's where all the optimism is until proven differently. I know everybody's just focused on what that is. It's just hard not being able to play right now to try to do something about it. What could Gary do for you guys if he's able to come back in a month or a month and a little after that? You already know what he's done and what does it mean to have him back? Even just his presence has meant a lot to you guys. For sure. He knows our system. He knows where to find his spots. And then on offense and defensively he's built a strong identity around being a pest out there. No matter who he's guarding, just making them uncomfortable. So defense has obviously been a big challenge for us all year. Our numbers, especially on the road, tell the story there. So he can plug a lot of holes for us. I know we have to wait a little longer than everybody expected but that's the optimism about if we could just get to that full team kind of opportunity and him healthy and all the work that he's going to do in his rehab to get his spring back and his juice back and get his body back. That's why the trade was made. So that's what we're holding out hope for. James has obviously been kind of a constant storyline for you guys over the last three years. Drafted second overall. That era is over now but as you look back on it, what's just your perspective on how it went down and why it didn't work? I mean it's such a unique situation from jump where we're coming off of five straight finals appearances. We have a down year, second pick. It was a guy that on paper filled a need for us in terms of a big presence like that that could be athletic on both ends of the floor. I know it's been well documented just the ups and downs that he's had in his whole career with the injuries, the COVID stuff they had. First training camp to meniscus surgery and the challenges there. Every time he started to figure out a little bit of momentum and show the signs he had something kind of pull him off the floor for whatever reason. So he never really could figure out the availability part. There was nothing he could control there. It was just a matter of how the cars were dealt. I think we all love James. That's the biggest thing. It's a guy that you root for. It's a guy that you know will be able to figure it out. It's a guy that approaches every part of his job the right way. Has a great attitude considering everything he's been through and the expectations around him and the conversations around him. So a lot of confidence that he'll be around this league for a long time. I don't know where the ceiling is but it's a guy I want to see figure it out and have an opportunity. I know it's been said it just wasn't going to be here because of all those circumstances and the fact that it was just tough to find minutes for him because of what we're trying to do and what Lou and Draymond and even J. Mike now bring to the floor. So I'm happy. I'm excited for him and I hope he does some great things in this league.