After leading the Warriors back from a 20-point halftime deficit, Stephen Curry rolled his right ankle in scary fashion late in the fourth quarter of Golden State's 125-115 win in New Orleans on Monday night. It did not look good:

Turn the sound up on that clip, and you'll hear longtime Warriors color man Jim Barnett, after wincing audibly, saying: "I've seen that before, but it's been years." Indeed, it has been years since Curry's tissue-paper ankles threatened to derail his career before it really got started. Since the 2012 surgery that, in hindsight, paved the way for one of the most electrifying runs in NBA history, Curry hasn't missed more than four games in any regular season, and many of those were simply for rest. 

Fact is, Curry has been one of the healthiest, most durable players in the league for a good while now, and yet, every time we see that ankle turn, and certainly when we see him heading down the tunnel on crutches, it feels like he's back on the brink, everyone holding their breath for some kind of good news. On Monday it appeared that Curry, and the entire NBA world, had gotten that good news as X-rays on his right ankle came back negative. "Just a sprain," according to The Athletic's Anthony Slater. 

On Tuesday, it was reported by Adrian Wojnarowski that the ankle will be "re-evaluated in a couple of weeks," with Shams Charania of The Vertical noting the "significant swelling" before adding there is no timetable for Curry's return. The Warriors confirmed the reports:

None of that sounds terrible, all things considered. But it doesn't sound great, either. Sounds like he could well be out through Christmas, if not longer, and any ankle injury with that kind of recovery timetable, when it involves Curry, is going to create a pretty unsettling cloud. After all, this isn't just about Warriors fans anymore. Every corner of the NBA world has stock in Curry. If he were to go down, if he suddenly wasn't able to be the same player, the league would suffer immeasurably. 

Of course that's a giant, completely dramatic leap to even start talking about what the league would be like without a guy because he sprained his ankle. This is basketball. It happens. It's more than likely nothing but a few-week rest for Curry and a little rehab. At the same time, you hear Curry and Injured Ankle in the same sentence, and the people who remember how touch and go his career truly was for a time will automatically have flashbacks. 

Because ... There would be no "next man up" if Curry did, ever, this time or next time or anywhere down the road, suffer any kind of injury that threatened his ability to be what he has become. You protect something like that. You worry about it to illogical extremes, like a Mickey Mantle rookie card that you put in a fireproof safe. You don't want that thing in anything less than mint condition. Under no circumstances could Curry be replaced. Not on the Warriors. Not in the league as a whole. And that, really, cuts to the core of our collective anxiety any time he pulls up with the slightest hobble: You can't be that dependent on someone without being equally fearful of losing them. 

Think about the 2016 playoffs. Curry goes down with a scary slip in Game 1 of the first round vs. Houston. He tweaks his knee. It looks bad. Everyone fears the worst. It turns out to be an MCL sprain, and he misses the rest of the series and the first three games of the second round. The playoffs just don't feel the same without him. He returns in Game 4 vs. Portland and scores 23 points in regulation, but he just doesn't look the same. Doesn't feel the same. And indeed, we don't just need Curry to be on the court. We need Curry to be Curry. 

In overtime, he is Steph freaking Curry, scoring an NBA record 17 points on the kind of dazzling shots only he can pull off, and once again all in the NBA world is right. Nobody else in the world could've given us those five minutes. LeBron is the best player, but even he doesn't trigger that kind of emotion. When people talk about how much fans relate to Curry because of his everyman size, or his baby face, or whatever it is that tricks people into thinking they are somehow cut from the same fabric as one of the greatest athletes in the world, it doesn't just mean they connect to his game. It means they connect to him. As a person. As someone whose pain they feel. 

That's what is happening when we see Curry go down, or get up, the way he did on Monday. It feels like the part us as fans that we hold most sacred, that visceral connection to all that gives us joy about basketball, is in jeopardy. Again, that sounds dramatic, and it is dramatic. It's a sprained ankle for crying out loud. But that's what we do when we're as invested in something as we are in the Curry phenomenon -- which is still the greatest show in all of sports. We overreact. Plain and simple. And the next time Curry tweaks his ankle, no matter how innocuously, we'll do it again.