Stephen Curry's Ankle Scare, 82 Weekend Cuts and a $139 Million Extension: The NBA's Dark Sunday Still Delivered

Sunday was supposed to be the quietest day on the NBA calendar — no games, the preseason over, the regular season still two days away, nothing due but paperwork. Instead, the league's dark day delivered Stephen Curry's ankle scare in San Francisco, the last wave of the weekend's cuts and a $139 million extension in Oklahoma City, all of it before dinner.

The league did not cooperate with the quiet. By the end of Sunday, the best player on a Western Conference hopeful had limped off a practice court in front of his own fans, Oklahoma City had committed $139 million to its starting guard of the future, front offices had finished the bloodiest cut weekend of the year, and two more names had landed on the injury list that will greet opening week. Yesterday's wrap-up in this space covered the shape of the weekend — the deadline, the lines and what was at stake. Sunday filled in the names.

The scare in San Francisco

The loudest silence of the day came at Chase Center, where the Warriors held an open practice for fans and Stephen Curry slipped on a noncontact play, banged the ball on the floor in frustration and limped straight back to the locker room. The first fear in the building was his knee. After practice, coach Steve Kerr delivered the update everyone in the Bay was waiting for: Curry had tweaked his right ankle, not his knee. "He said he's fine," Kerr told reporters, adding that he had spoken with Curry in the training room. A team source echoed that the injury is not considered serious.

Fine is a relative word on this roster. Golden State opens Wednesday night in Los Angeles against the Lakers, and the Warriors are already expected to be without Jimmy Butler, who is recovering from a torn ACL, and Moses Moody, who is dealing with a patellar tendon issue — both projected for midseason returns — while Kristaps Porzingis remains away from the team with an undisclosed medical issue, though he says he is improving. Brandin Podziemski and Charles Bassey also sat out Sunday's session, Bassey with his right knee wrapped in ice. This is a franchise built entirely around Curry's shooting and the gravity it creates, and at 38, entering his 18th season, he is coming off a year in which injuries limited him to 43 games while he still averaged 26.6 points. Kerr has already warned fans that the team will manage its veterans through back-to-backs. An ankle tweak in a fan practice does not change a season. On a team with this little margin, though, Sunday was a reminder of how quickly the whole plan can wobble.

One extension beat the buzzer

The weekend's biggest check was written in Oklahoma City. The Thunder signed Cason Wallace to a five-year, $139 million contract extension on Sunday, according to ESPN's Shams Charania — a deal that lands with less than a day to spare before Monday's 5 p.m. CT deadline for rookie-scale extensions for the 2023 draft class. Wallace, a first-time All-Defensive selection last season, is expected to be a full-time starter this year, and the deal keeps him under contract through the 2031-32 season at roughly $27.8 million a year. For a Thunder team that opens Tuesday in San Antonio, it removes the last piece of offseason business and the last possible distraction.

Phoenix got its own extension done this weekend, locking up Oso Ighodaro as the Suns sort out their frontcourt. Not every young player got a call, though. Denver's Julian Strawther is eligible to sign a rookie-scale extension through Monday — and as of Sunday, he is spending deadline day in rehabilitation instead of at a negotiating table, for reasons that belong in the injury section below.

The cut list closed the weekend

While Oklahoma City was spending, most of the league was subtracting. Eighty-two players were waived on Saturday alone, the final day teams could release a player on a non-guaranteed contract without owing him any salary. The math explains the rush: rosters must be set by Monday at 5 p.m. ET — no more than 15 standard contracts and three two-way deals — and a player waived on Monday would not clear waivers until Wednesday, costing his team two days of pay even on a non-guaranteed deal. So the cuts came in a flood on Saturday: Exhibit 10 signees, training-camp invites, former first-round picks and familiar veterans, all looking for a G League landing spot or one more phone call.

The trimming continued Sunday. Boston waived Tucker DeVries, Gabe McGlothan, Hayden Gray and Milos Uzan — all on Exhibit 10 deals, all eligible for a bonus if they sign with the Maine Celtics and stay 60 days — and signed guard Devin Carter to a two-way contract. The champion New York Knicks waived veteran guard Bruce Brown on Saturday. Minnesota's final five cuts, including Drew Timme a night after his best game of the preseason, are covered in full on the site. By Monday evening, every roster in the league is final, and the paperwork part of the season is over.

The injury ledger grew without a single game

Denver's news arrived Sunday and it was not good. The Nuggets announced that swingman Julian Strawther sprained his left knee in the third quarter of Wednesday's preseason game against the Clippers — he pivoted to protect the ball, his foot slipped, his knee bent awkwardly and he had to be helped to the locker room. The early fear was worse; an MRI showed a sprain. Even so, Strawther will be re-evaluated in six weeks, which wipes out the opening stretch of the season, including Denver's opener on Oct. 22 at Oklahoma City. The 24-year-old averaged 7.2 points in 57 games last season, and with Peyton Watson gone, he was the Nugget most likely to absorb a bigger bench role. Now that opportunity waits until at least late November.

Washington is holding its breath over a smaller sprain with a bigger name attached. AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall pick in June's draft, sustained what coach Brian Keefe called a mild left ankle sprain in Friday's preseason finale against New Orleans, landing awkwardly after a midrange jumper in the second quarter and limping to the locker room. He had 12 points in 15 minutes before he left, told the tunnel cameras "I'm good" on his way out, and was removed as a precaution ahead of further testing. The Wizards open Wednesday at home against Milwaukee, and the most anticipated debut in franchise history — Washington's first No. 1 pick since 2010, a BYU freshman who led the nation in scoring at 25.5 points a game — is suddenly a wait-and-see.

And Sacramento's brutal weekend found one more gear: after a winless preseason, the Kings lost Ben Simmons to a torn right Achilles suffered in practice, a story we covered in full earlier Sunday.

What Friday's finales left behind

The last basketball anyone played was Friday's 12-game finale night, and two days of distance have clarified what it meant. In Philadelphia, Boston's deep reserves beat the 76ers' starters 125-120 in overtime — Hugo González scored 21 points in under 20 minutes, Sam Cassell coached the Celtics to a 4-0 preseason — but the lasting image was Joel Embiid: 27 points, eight rebounds and five assists in 29 minutes, 11-for-13 at the free-throw line, and a third-quarter dunk that prompted him to joke afterward that he thought he might never dunk again. Tyrese Maxey had 22 points and six assists, Jaylen Brown scored 20 against his former team, and LeBron James posted eight points, eight rebounds and seven assists in his unofficial home debut. Philadelphia's stars looked like a problem. Philadelphia's depth gave the game back. Both things can be true, and both travel to New York on Tuesday.

In San Antonio, the Spurs closed with a 126-97 rout of Sacramento that turned on one play: Victor Wembanyama took a defensive rebound, went coast to coast in four dribbles, tossed the ball off the backboard to himself and dunked it — 14 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in 17 minutes before sitting out the second half, with Dylan Harper scoring 19 and De'Aaron Fox adding 16 against his old team. Milwaukee needed overtime to beat Indiana 128-127 behind 25 points from Tyler Herro, and the rookie class filed its last exhibition report card: Cooper Flagg went for 26 points and 12 rebounds in Dallas's loss to Atlanta, No. 2 pick Darryn Peterson scored six of his 13 points in the final five minutes as Utah won at Phoenix, No. 3 pick Cameron Boozer had 19 and seven for Memphis, and No. 4 pick Caleb Wilson filled every column — 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists, two blocks — in Chicago's win over Minnesota. The rest of the board: Detroit 129, Toronto 125; Orlando 136, Miami 115; Golden State 128, Portland 118; Denver 121, the Lakers 106; New Orleans 107, Washington 106. None of it counts. All of it was information.

Tuesday, the games count

What all of this was prologue to arrives Tuesday, Oct. 20, in a three-game opening-night slate on NBC and Peacock. It starts with an afternoon game in Detroit, where the Celtics visit the Pistons — the East's top two finishers from last season. Then the defending champion Knicks raise their banner at Madison Square Garden against the remade 76ers of James, Brown, Embiid and Maxey, in the first game all weekend that actually tests Philadelphia's chemistry. The night closes in San Antonio, where the Spurs host the Thunder in a rematch of last spring's Western Conference finals, which San Antonio won in seven games: Wembanyama on one side, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the other, and Wallace arriving with a new $139 million contract in his pocket.

Wednesday brings everyone else: Curry's ankle gets its first real test when the Warriors visit the Lakers, Dybantsa's ankle permitting, Washington hosts Milwaukee, and the ESPN doubleheader features Giannis Antetokounmpo's debut for Miami and LaMelo Ball's first game for Minnesota. Monday, first, there is one more day of paperwork — rosters locked by 5 p.m. ET, extensions signed or gone by the same hour. Then the dark days end. The next wrap-up in this space will have real scores in it, and after a weekend like this one, that almost feels like a relief.