Nike Zoom Brave V's

Golden State Warrior’s PG, Stephen Curry has been sidelined a total of 11 games this season due to repeated ankle injuries.  “It’s not where I want it to be. I’m just trying to be as effective as I can when I get out there,” said Curry.  Coach Jackson said the Warriors want to be “smart” about bringing him back. Curry has scored 27 points on 12-of-18 shooting in 33 minutes over his last two games since returning, but I think he has had like 9 surgeries in all on the right ankle, so far with the past 2 years.

Curry’s ankle issues have to do with the way he naturally moves his ankle.  Curry has tendency to supinate more, therefore rolls his ankle out, exposing greater risk of injury. This movement is called, “proprioception”.  Aside from the repeated rehab, icing treatments, and recent Nike shoe change, Curry has to also focus on his movement during sport to be preventative from injury as well.  He has to get comfortable playing his style of backetball, but not too comfortable that he ignores key adjustments in his movements on the court, during play.  Curry is in a contract year extention, meaning he’s got alot to prove, therefore an aggressive approach is expected from him, but the concern here is that it could be rushed in the Warriors attempts to collect “W”‘s in the process this season.

Curry consulted with the Nike Laboratory in Portland, Org. for proprioception testing and later changed from the Nike Hyperdunks(High), settled on the Nike Zoom Brave V(Low) basketball shoes.  For a player like Curry with multiple ankle sprains, each additional sprain leads to the weakening or stretching of the ligaments, resulting in increased instability and laxity and decreased proprioception. While strengthening exercises, balance exercises, and other traditional rehabilitation protocols will help to reduce the injury, strengthen the muscles around the joint, and return some proprioception, two issues will remain: (1) the stretched and weakened ligaments and (2) the same stride mechanics with the loading on the external border of the foot.  Any dynamic movement makes controlling his center of gravity difficult due to this ground contact pattern coupled with the increased instability of so many previous sprains.

Curry will need to retrain their movement patterns and will continue to be susceptible to frequent ankle injuries until he changes.  Without a change in his movement patterns, his offense and defense will be effected.  Therefore, there is little that he can do to improve his basketball technique to avoid further injury. Basketball is a game of quick stops and starts. Until he improves his foot strike in these conditions, he will be susceptible to further injury, and fantasy owners will be inextricably shoe-tied to it.