Stephen Curry will finally return Thursday against Raptors

It’s been a miserable season for the Golden State Warriors, but thankfully, Stephen Curry has been cleared to return to action Thursday night.

The NBA is in as good a place as it’s been in decades. From LeBron James‘ absurd greatness at age 35 to Giannis Antetokounmpo running away with the MVP race to the immediate impact of the future faces of the league like Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson, this current season hasn’t lacked anything in terms of intrigue or star power.

And yet, somehow, it still hasn’t been the same without Stephen Curry.

Things haven’t gone well for the Golden State Warriors dating back to only nine months ago. Instead of a third straight championship, the Dubs lost Kevin Durant to an Achilles’ injury, lost Klay Thompson to a torn ACL and lost their final game at Oracle Arena, which just so happened to be the closeout Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

It didn’t get much better over the ensuing months. KD left in free agency to join the Brooklyn Nets, Andre Iguodala was traded away and Shaun Livingston retired. The Warriors added D’Angelo Russell, sure, but with Durant gone and Thompson likely out for the season, any playoff hopes Golden State had left rested on Curry going supernova like he did during his unanimous MVP season back in 2015-16 — the last time he played without KD.

Unfortunately, the excitement over a rogue Steph Curry unleashing hell from 3-point range didn’t last long. After an underwhelming three-game start, Curry went down in his fourth game of the season with a broken left hand, and the Warriors’ season immediately turned to one of development with an eye set on 2020-21.

It’s been a miserable last few months for Dubs fans, even coming off the heels of perhaps the most successful five-year stretch in modern NBA history. Thankfully though, the Warriors aren’t shutting down this forgettable 2019-20 campaign without giving the Chase Center something to cheer about.

According to The Athletic‘s Anthony Slater, Curry will return after a 58-game absence Thursday night as the Warriors take on the visiting Raptors:

This is great news for Curry, the Warriors, their fans and the NBA in general, especially in this season’s first NBA Finals rematch. The last time the Raptors visited the Bay, they came home with the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Curry may not be in prime form right now, and he’ll probably have some rust to shake off against one of the league’s most stifling defenses, but at the very least, he’ll be coming back for a matchup that has some importance to him and Warriors fans alike.

With the Dubs sporting the league’s worst record and worst point differential, Curry’s return for the last month or so of the season offers a reprieve from the constant misery. It will also give Steve Kerr and company an extended look at how these youngsters might mesh around the two-time MVP for next season.

This year’s All-Star Game was littered with first-time All-Stars, and the NBA is thriving on the vibrant personalities and dominant talents it has to offer from teams 1-30. But the league wasn’t quite the same without Chef Curry, and even in a lost season that means nothing to Golden State with the dynasty on pause, it’ll be good to watch him go to work once again.