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A Timeline of Golden State Warriors Star Steph Curry's Ankle Injury Woes
March 24, 2013
The Golden State Warriors picked up win No. 40 on Saturday night, a pretty impressive achievement for a club that many had pegged for the lottery this season. It's too bad the postgame focus will all be on Stephen Curry and yet another injury to his troublesome right ankle.
According to Marcus Thompson II of the San Jose Mercury News, this latest injury occurred midway through the fourth quarter of the Warriors' 101-92 victory over the Washington Wizards:
Curry sustained the injury during a fast-break at the 6:03 mark of the fourth quarter. Wizards swingman Cartier Martin reached out to grab Curry to take the foul and stop the fast break. Curry hopped while dribbling around his back to elude Martin. When he landed, he rolled his right ankle on the hardwood.
This is the third time Curry has suffered a sprain to his right ankle in this season alone. Looking back a bit, the timeline of Curry's ankle troubles is pretty staggering.
On Dec. 8, 2010, he rolled his right ankle while simply handling the ball on the perimeter against the San Antonio Spurs. No opponent was near him, he didn't step on anyone's foot and there was no awkward movement that precipitated the damage.
In hindsight, that should have been a sign that Curry's right ankle would be a problem.
Throughout the 2010-11 season, Curry had trouble with the ankle, which led to an offseason surgery to help reattach and strengthen the torn ligaments that a year of sprains and tweaks had ravaged.
The lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign didn't go much better for the Warriors point guard or his surgically repaired wheel, as a sprain on Jan. 4, 2012 got things off to a bad start. He missed nearly two weeks with that injury, returning to play at less than 100 percent for most of February.
Then on March 10, 2012, disaster struck again.
Curry wouldn't play another game that year. After the season, Curry underwent yet another surgery in April 2012 to clean out scar tissue and remove loose bodies. The procedure didn't uncover any structural damage, so Curry spent the summer rehabbing and joined Warriors training camp with limited restrictions.
After signing a new $44 million contract before the 2012-13 season, Curry and the Warriors hoped that his ankle troubles were behind him.
Unfortunately, two more tweaks on Jan. 17 and Jan. 28 have cost Curry a total of four games this season as well.
And now he's done it again.
For the Warriors, it's a waiting game they're familiar with. Curry will undergo X-rays after the game, and then they'll wait to see how his body responds in the two off days the team has before its next game.
For Curry, though, this latest setback couldn't have come at a worse time. He's played spectacular basketball since the All-Star break, averaging over 26 points per game on 49 percent shooting and looking like a player in the midst of taking the difficult step from "star" to "franchise cornerstone."
Here's hoping the severity of this sprain is closer to the ones he suffered in January, and not like the season-ending tweak he endured last year.