Seth Curry had successful arthroscopic surgery on his left ankle on Monday, the third procedure on a Nets player in less than two months — and by the third different doctor.
After Joe Harris had ankle surgery in mid-March, Ben Simmons underwent back surgery last week. Now it was Curry having his procedure performed by Dr. Martin O’Malley at the Hospital for Special Surgery, one that both he and the Nets fully expected as he played through pain during the final stretch of the season.
“It’s been bothering me a while, since even when I was in Philly. So it’s something I’ve been dealing with for a while. It’s probably not going to fully go away to the end of the season when I get an extended amount of time to rest and heal it,” Curry said in March.
“I’ve been dealing with it so long now, I know different ways to get it right for the game and things like that. Not to get into specifics, just something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of the season probably.”
Curry is expected to be fully recovered before next season’s training camp, expected to start in September. The surgery is expected to correct an injury the veteran guard had been dealing with even before arriving in Brooklyn in a Feb. 10 trade deadline deal.
The injury was such that the Nets never thought about shutting him down because they didn’t feel a week or two of rest was going to make any difference. Surgery always appeared a fait accompli.
“Trying to find him rest is definitely a priority for us; but also knowing that if we rest him, it doesn’t mean that he comes back and plays one game and it’s all gone,” Nets coach Steve Nash said last month. “It might be right back to where he started.
“It is a little bit tricky just to hold him out indefinitely to try to believe that he’s going to be healed. That’s not what we believe. He’s going to be fighting through this a little bit the rest of the way.”
Curry has one year left on his four-year, $32 million contract, and is considered a bargain next season at a team-friendly $8.558 million.
The veteran guard averaged a career-high 15.0 points last season on 42.2 percent shooting from 3-point range. And despite the ankle injury cutting into his practice time and limiting his training regimen, he averaged 14.9 points on 46.8 percent from deep with the Nets — including a white-hot 52.2 percent in the playoffs.
Curry is third-best all time in 3-point shooting in both the regular season (43.9 percent) and playoffs (47.5 percent), and tops among all active players in both. He surpasses even Harris, who should combine to give Brooklyn lethal floor-spacers next season around Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.