Steve Kerr Reveals Steph Curry 'Realistic' Return Date from Quad Injury

Before Saturday's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Steve Kerr said "it's realistic" that Stephen Curry will return for Golden State's Friday game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Curry has missed the Warriors' last four games (including Saturday) with a quad injury.

Entering Saturday, Golden State was 2-5 without Curry.

Numbers Show How Reliant the Warriors Are on Steph for Offense

When Steph is on the court, the Warriors have a 119.3 offensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass. That would rank as the eighth-best offense in the NBA.

When he's off, the offensive rating drops to 108.0. That would be the worst offense in the NBA.

That 11.3 offensive-rating swing is big (ranks in the 95th percentile among all players), but it's par for the course for Steph.

Last year, the offensive rating was 13.1 points per possessions with Steph. Curry has an offensive-rating swing of at least 10 in 10 different seasons.

When put that way, there's no shame in this team's offensive struggles without him.

Warriors Nearing the Return of Elite Curry, Green, Melton Trio

De'Anthony Melton played just six games last year before suffering a torn ACL. In those six games, he played 97 possessions with Curry and Green.

Their offensive rating was 139.2(!). Their defensive rating was 100.0(!).

It makes sense that Melton would mesh well with Curry. Melton is a dogged point-of-attack defender who is somewhat limited offensively but can make open threes. So Melton can take advantage of Curry's ability to create offense, while Curry can get some rest while Melton does the heavy lifting on defense.

Of course, the Curry, Melton, Green trio never got to play with Jimmy Butler, who was acquired two months after the ACL injury.

There's every reason to believe that Butler will enhance the trio. If so, the Warriors will start to climb the Western Conference standings.