Season hasn’t started, but already took an L

USA Today

With the Mavericks’ season looming just days away, lets take a more in-depth look at the biggest injury that’s affected their season, Seth Curry’s tibial stress reaction.

What’s a stress reaction?

It’s a precursor to a stress fracture. It means that the bone structure is breaking down and becoming weaker, which without any proper care or action, would lead towards a crack or fracture. Just think your typical shin splints, but exacerbated like crazy. The body is stressed with all types of weight-bearing exercises throughout the day, and as a result, the area of stress is continually remodeled. In this case, Curry had been putting in work in the offseason like crazy to get ready for another career year. What probably happened was with the amount of stress and force he was putting on his leg, the remodeling function of his tibia was not keeping up with the demands of the stress.

Prognosis and Recovery

The Mavericks have come out and stated that Seth is out indefinitely and does not have a timeline. Recovery time for this kind of injury is different for everyone. According to the department of rehab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a typical timeline for a stress reaction is approximately three to four weeks. Now for Seth, that means letting his leg recovery for that period of time, and then slowly ramping up back into playing shape. The biggest risk of course, is seeing him get back into action too quickly and aggravating the injury or worse, leading it into a stress fracture.

Jrue Holiday of the Pelicans had a similar injury in the 2014-15 season. He was originally said to come back in two to four weeks. Holiday missed a month, came back, and had a set back, which led to missing three more weeks. He missed a total of 42 games that year.

Personally, I’d rather see Seth take his time with this injury and return when he’s truly ready. A good four weeks of rehab, and then slowly returning to the lineup should do the trick. Last year, he averaged 12.8 ppg while shooting 42.5% from the arch. This year, he was slated to start alongside rookie (ROY!) Dennis Smith Jr., a tandem that would have wrecked teams defenses. Curry’s three point hand will surely be missed, but with the Mavericks’ depth of Barea, Harris, and Ferrell, they can bide time until Curry returns.

Fire up the three undersized, mighty mouse guard lineups!