Introducing the Stephen Curry Ankle Watch

There are a lot of important issues on America’s collective mind right now—wealth inequality in a post-industrial economy, the status of Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination, whether Taylor Swift’s albums will ever be available again on Spotify—but without a doubt the most important question facing the nation is this one: Can the Golden State Warriors, led by fancy-dribbling folk-hero sharpshooter-slash-demigod Stephen Curry, fully assert themselves as the greatest team in NBA history by winning the league championship after a record 73-9 regular season? The first step toward answering that question was taken on Saturday as the Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets 104-78 in Game 1 of the teams’ first-round playoff series. But it wasn’t all good news: During the game, Stephen Curry twisted his right ankle.

If you’ve followed Curry’s career, you know that this could be very bad news for the Warriors. For one, Curry is his team’s indispensable linchpin. Golden State outscores its opponents by an average of 18 points per 100 possessions when Curry is playing but gets outscored by 4 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the bench. (This isn’t to suggest they’d be a losing team without him, since Curry’s time on the bench tends to correspond with the Warriors’ other stars’ time on the bench, but it does illustrate just how amazingly good the team is, particularly on offense, when he’s playing.) Curry also has a long history of ankle injuries. He sustained five sprained ankles in the 2011-2012 season, playing only 26 of its 82 games; in 2013, he tweaked his left ankle twice in the playoffs as the Warriors lost in the second round. The fear that Curry’s lower extremities were unreliable is a big part of the reason the contract he signed in 2012 is so much smaller than the contracts of other top stars—he was considered a risky investment. Because of his past problems, Curry has gone to crazy lengths to calibrate his body so that he puts as little stress on his ankles as possible. He knows his franchise’s fate depends on them. And now the right one has once again become, as they say, a little iffy. The Warriors and Rockets play again tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET, and it’s still not clear whether Curry will be on the floor.

Thus do we introduce the Stephen Curry Ankle Watch, a running feature that will monitor Mr. Curry’s high-profile joints on a scale ranging from “Not Great” to “Touch and Go” to “They’re Probably Fine” to “100 Percent Ready to Rock.” Today’s status: Touch and Go. Godspeed, Steph.