SAN FRANCISCO — Steph Curry winced and limped to the locker room Sunday night, putting hardly any weight at all on his freshly injured left ankle. But even before MRIs confirmed as much later that night, the Warriors star was confident it wasn’t a serious sprain.
Years of ankle issues, it turns out, have provided Curry an intimate familiarity with the body part.
“Unfortunately, he’s got a lot of experience with ankle sprains and dealing with his ankles,” coach Steve Kerr said.
Despite his obvious discomfort, Curry told Kerr after leaving the Warriors’ loss to the Clippers with 7:55 left in the fourth quarter Sunday night that he believed it was only a “mild or moderate” sprain. While he was ruled out for the Warriors’ next two games, the team said Curry will be re-evaluated Friday after scans revealed a left peroneal strain.
“He knows his body better than anybody,” Kerr said. “He works every day in the training room on strength, he wears his ankle braces every day. This is part of his entire career. He’s used to this.”
To get a sense of Curry’s injury history, here is a timeline since he entered the league in 2009:
March 17, 2010: Curry’s name appears on an NBA injury report for the first time. A left ankle sprain costs him two games toward the end of his rookie season, but he otherwise appears in 80 of 82 possible games.
Oct. 29, 2010: Two games into his sophomore season, Curry sprains his right ankle. The initial injury keeps him out for only two games, but issues with his right ankle would keep him inactive for eight games in total by the end of the season.
May 25, 2011: A month after the regular season, Dr. Bob Anderson performs surgery on Curry’s right ankle in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dec. 26, 2011: One game after making his delayed season debut, Curry injures his surgically repaired right ankle again. The season proves to be the second-shortest of Curry’s career, coming to an end March 17 after spraining his ankle five separate times, costing him 40 games.
April 25, 2012: Curry undergoes a second procedure on his right ankle, performed by Dr. Richard Ferkel in Van Nuys, California, and detailed by Pablo Torre in an ESPN The Magazine story four years later. The operation, according to the team, “revealed a stable ankle with no structural damage and consisted of cleaning out loose debris and scar tissue.”
Sept. 20, 2012: Curry receives full medical clearance to resume basketball activities after his follow-up procedure, and five weeks later, he signs a four-year, $44 million rookie extension. Despite averaging 17.5 points, 5.8 assists and 4.1 rebounds through his first three seasons, the deal is viewed as a discount due to the uncertainty surrounding his ankles.
May 25, 2016: Curry is named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive season and, for the first time in the league’s history, received every possible first-place vote. After returning from his second ankle surgery at the end of the 2017 season, Curry appears in 394 of a possible 410 games — plus another 75 in the postseason — while leading the Warriors to their first three of five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals.
June 8, 2017: Curry hoists the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the second consecutive season and the third time in four years, but only after his most injury-plagued season since before his ankle operation. He misses 31 regular-season games and the opening round of the playoffs after dealing with another series of right ankle sprains and eventually spraining a ligament in his left knee.
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Oct. 31, 2019: Five games into the Warriors’ season, Curry falls and suffers the worst injury of his career. He lands hard on his left hand, fracturing a bone in index finger that would keep him out the next four months. Without Curry or Klay Thompson, the Warriors traipse to a 15-50 finish in the pandemic-shortened season, the fourth-worst winning percentage in franchise history.
Dec. 22, 2020: A fully healthy Curry returns with a fury, going on to lead the NBA in scoring (32 ppg) and a third-place finish in MVP voting. A year later, at age 33, he will celebrate his fourth NBA championship while being heralded for his durability and conditioning.
Curry’s name makes the occasional appearance on the injury report alongside various body parts — a hip, an elbow, a shoulder, a knee — but his ankles don’t cost him serious time again until the second half of last season, when he landed awkwardly and missed three games with a sprained right ankle.
The hope is that, like last March, Curry’s latest ankle ailment won’t keep him sidelined for long.
