Stephen Curry left Houston after six minutes with right abdominal soreness, and the Warriors are waiting on an MRI

Stephen Curry's only basket on Wednesday night was a three with about seven and a half minutes left in the first quarter in Houston, and as he backpedaled after it he put a hand on his right side and winced, according to the Associated Press account published on NBA.com. He walked straight to Steve Kerr and then to the locker room, and the Warriors ruled him out for the rest of the night with right abdominal soreness, which ESPN's recap of the game reported in the same words. He played six minutes and scored three points, and the Rockets won 115-108, ending a Golden State winning streak of eight games that the AP called the team's longest since 2022.

What happens next depends on imaging nobody has seen yet. Curry left the arena in the second half for an MRI, and the AP reported that the team had not received any information from it by the time Kerr spoke. Asked about his level of concern, Kerr said, "I mean, concern is high, but I have no idea the extent of the injury," and he added that Curry "said he tweaked something in his abdominal area and said he's never done it before." There is no diagnosis and no timeline, and this story will not guess at one.

What the managers who drafted him are holding

Curry came into the night second in the league in scoring at 30.6 points a game, by the AP's count, and our numbers had been rising with him. Across his ten games, Wednesday's six minutes included, he is averaging 27.8 points and 4.3 threes on 50.0% shooting and 98.7% from the line, by the season averages our projections keep. Our points board under ESPN's standard scoring has him 19th and our 9-cat board has him 8th, against an analysts' consensus of 32nd on points and 18th on 9-cat, so our projections already valued him well above the panel before Wednesday.

Those ranks do not yet carry any absence. Our live projections were rebuilt after the game and still project 65.9 games for him, because the injury feed they read had nothing more than the in-game ruling when they ran. When the Warriors say how long he will be out, his projected games will fall and his rank with them, while the line he produces when he plays will stay where it is.

Who took the shots

With Curry gone, ESPN's recap named rookie Yaxel Lendeborg as Golden State's leader, and he finished with 25 points and 10 rebounds in 36 minutes on 9-of-19 shooting, which is 37 fantasy points under ESPN's standard scoring. Brandin Podziemski added 22 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals with a single turnover in 37 minutes, for 44. We have written twice about what Lendeborg does when Curry sits, after a rest night in Phoenix and after his career-high 37, and on Wednesday the two of them took 34 of the shots in a game Curry left after six minutes.

Our boards have both well above the analysts. Podziemski is 69th on our points board and 57th on our 9-cat board against a consensus of 109th and 108th, and Lendeborg is 65th and 80th against 147th and 152nd. If Curry misses real time, Podziemski is the steadier add, because his assists, steals and low turnovers count in every format, while Lendeborg's value is scoring volume that rises and falls with the shots Curry leaves behind.

What to do before the MRI comes back

Hold Curry in every format, and move him to an injured reserve slot if your platform allows it once the Warriors list him as out. Golden State plays at San Antonio on Friday in the NBA Cup group stage, then at New Orleans on Monday, at Dallas next Wednesday and at Memphis on Thursday, by the published schedule, so a manager setting a lineup for Friday should assume he will not play until the team says otherwise. If Podziemski is on your wire, he is the pickup to make now, before the MRI result moves the market.

Every player in this story is on the fantasy basketball rankings and the 2026-27 projections, and the NBA depth charts show where each one stands in his team’s rotation tonight.