After the Warriors selected him seventh overall in the 2009 NBA Draft, Steph Curry averaged 17.5 points and 5.9 assists over 80 games as a rookie.
On Dec. 8, 2010, Curry sprained his right ankle in San Antonio and missed the next six games.
He ended up averaging 18.6 points and 5.8 assists per contest in 74 games, and underwent surgery on his right ankle in May 2011.
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SIGN UP HERE The 2011-12 campaign didn't go as planned for Curry. Five ankle sprains limited him to 26 games, and he went under the knife in April 2012 for a procedure on his left ankle.
"He was turning his ankle in completely nontraditional, crazy ways," Warriors general manager Bob Myers told ESPN's Pablo Torre recently. "It was scary. I'd never seen someone sprain his ankle like that prior to Steph. And I haven't seen it since."
As Torre chronicles in his feature story, a frustrated Curry in the summer of 2012 was concerned about his short-term and long-term NBA prospects.
"I feel like I've been doing nothing but rehabbing for two years," Curry told his personal trainer, Brandon Payne. "I feel like I'm never going to be able to play again."
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Just when he thought he turned a corner, Curry rolled his right ankle in a Warriors preseason game in Portland on Oct. 19.
Then head coach Mark Jackson shut Curry down for the team's final two preseason games, and it was unclear whether Curry and the Warriors would agree on an extension before the Oct. 31 deadline.
Ultimately, Curry signed a 4-year, $44 million deal and responded with a breakout 2012-13 season -- 22.9 points, 6.9 assists, an NBA single-season record 272 3-pointers and a first-round upset of the Denver Nuggets.
"We bet on who he is as a human being," Myers told Torre. "We bet on his ability. We bet on the fact that he was the type of player who'd do everything within his power to come back and be smart and be diligent."
The Warriors won the bet.
Curry captured the MVP last year and led the Warriors to their first NBA title since 1975.
Golden State (47-4) is off to the best start in NBA history and Curry -- who registered 35 points and nine assists on Tuesday night against Houston -- is the front-runner to capture another MVP.
And if he never dealt with the ankle issues, it's possible that none of this would be happening.
"The ankle thing made him work smarter, to counteract him ever being put in that position again," Warriors assistant GM Kirk Lacob told Torre.
"It made Steph what he is now," Myers added.
"It definitely drove home my work ethic," Curry explained to Torre. "Post-surgery, it's kept me driven about taking advantage of every day. There was a time when I was just worried about playing basketball, much less playing at a high level. Now I try to have as much fun out there as possible.
"You don't enjoy the surgery and the rehab process. But I enjoy how I came out of it, for sure."