The Golden State Warriors were given a lifeline of hope when reports emerged last week, suggesting 'cautious optimism' surrounding the possibility that Steph Curry may return from his knee injury by the end of March. 

The face of the franchise has been out since the end of January due to an issue that originally began as just a case of runner's knee, but has since progressed to include bone bruising and swelling. Recently, Curry was hoping to ramp up his workouts and get in a scrimmage alongside the rest of his teammates, but it seems it was to no avail.

Curry never ended up scrimmaging with the Warriors throughout the week. Then, as first reported on Friday afternoon by Shams Charania and Anthony Slater on X, and later officially announced by the Warriors, it was revealed Curry will need one more week before he is re-evaluated once again. The next step remains that live 5-on-5 scrimmage that is meant to occur in "the coming days."

It's an extremely frustrating announcement for Warriors fans hoping Curry could be back soon, not just to help the Warriors in their final 9 games of the season, but to even simply get some game conditioning in him before having to jump into the intense, high-stakes games in the Play-In Tournament.

Additionally, it also stokes the growing discussion online that the Warriors should hold Curry out for the rest of the season and, in a way, "tank" the rest of the season. With Moses Moody's recent injury, compounded with Jimmy Butler's ACL injury and the rest of the Warriors with less major injuries, like Al Horford and Seth Curry, the Warriors aren't projecting to be the strongest team come postseason play. 

Ultimately, Anthony Slater did report that Steph Curry still has not given up hope on returning late in the regular season, but at this point, with at least another week added to his recovery time, it may not even come down to a matter of if the Warriors want to hold him out or not. Unless these re-evaluations are being done in extreme caution that could potentially equate to a form of tanking, Curry may not even be healthy enough to return by the end of the season, whether he wants to or not.

It's truly been an unsatisfying roller-coaster of a season for the Warriors, and this is just the cherry on top that Curry isn't even out there to try to stymy some of the disappointment. With this extra week, Curry will now miss at least 25 straight games.