Golden State Warriors Klay Thompson Injury Discussion

The second member of Golden State’s Splash Brothers is out a several weeks with an injury. Steph Curry recently reinjured his ankle and is going to miss the next week and then be reevaluated. Klay Thompson suffered what was originally thought to be a “sprained” thumb has had it’s severity upgraded to fractured thumb in his shooting hand (right hand).

Thumb fractures usually occur through a direct trauma, such as the one Klay Thompson suffered. The thumb is forcefully extended backwards. There are a variety of fractures the thumb can suffer and it hasn’t been reported which one he did suffer but currently surgery is not an option.

Anatomy Review:

The thumb, also known as the 1st carpometacarpal joint, connects the trapezium (carpal bone) to the first metacarpal bone. The joint that is formed is a saddle joint, one of the types of synovial joints. It allows movement in three different planes of movement: flexion/extension; abduction/adduction; circumduction. The thumb is a unique joint because of all the different range of motions it has thus it plays an important role in being able to grasp, clutch, and squeeze.

It’s held together by strong ligaments and small muscles within the hand and long tendons, whose muscles originate in the forearm.

What I Could Do: With a hyperextension injury at the joint, muscles and ligaments will have been overstretched causing damage and instability at the joint.

I’ll start with checking his range of motion ability and to determine what ranges are provocative to him. Therapy will be centered around decreasing pain and strengthening his grip strength.

Manual therapy focus on muscles of the thumb to help decrease the pain and making sure that range of motion in all directions is maintained and that all range of motion is pain-free.

He will still be getting electrical stimulation, massage, instrument assisted soft tissue work as well. Grip strengthening will come with squeezing stress balls, placing in hand in a bucket of raise, and holding dumbbells or kettlebells in his hand to help strengthen his grip.

My Take: As long as he doesn’t need surgery he should be back in time for the playoffs. The challenge for him is pain tolerance. Since he did injure his shooting thumb, there is a level of pain tolerance he will have to manage. Also his ability to shoot, dribble, and pass will be affected as well. Depending on re-evaluation, he could be sidelined for a few more weeks to give the tendons and bone extra time to heal with treatment or he could decide to get surgery. But if there’s not a chance he could further damage the joint, then he could choose to opt for surgery after season’s end and play through. It is difficult to comment since we don’t know the severity of the fracture and where the fracture is located, but you could bet he’s going to give his best to play, and I believe he’ll take extra time for recovery and be back for the start of the playoffs.