On April 25, 2012, a famous surgeon was watching over a pale, barely conscious Curry at the Van Nuys, California-based Southern California Orthopedic Institute. Dr. Richard Ferkel has operated on hundreds of NBA players’ ankles since 1983, and in the vast majority of those cases, he knew exactly what to look for even before the anesthesia began to take effect: scar tissue, structural damage, etc. But something about his 185-pound patient in this operating room on the fourth floor didn’t add up. Steph slept like a mystery while the clock on the wall ticked off and the Curry family prayed nearby.
Prior to the drug rush, Ferkel had outlined several possible outcomes. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Curry’s hometown, a specialist had already cut up his right ankle less than a year earlier and repaired two ligaments that had become torn like a deteriorating sweater. Now, the worst-case situation? Complete reconstruction would include a retry of every procedure that Curry’s initial operation rebuilt. Better parts, notably tendons from a cadaver, would be used if that turned out to be essential, and at least six months would be needed for recuperation. However, the procedure would be so drastic that it would be uncertain how the new hinge would do in a judicial setting. One thing was for sure: Curry’s future with Golden State would be somewhat less assured as his rookie contract will expire on November 1, 2012, six months from now. The undead ankle wouldn’t likely show up in a game until his agency negotiated an extension.
Lyles had been seeing Curry from a distance in Minnesota, where he was the Timberwolves’ strength and conditioning coach, before to joining the Warriors in 2013 as performance director. Despite the despair surrounding his rehabilitation in July 2012, Curry went on to play a comforting 78 games that season, with a breakthrough 22.9/4.0/6.9 line. However, Ferkel’s procedure was not a miracle treatment. Forward Brandon Rush, who played for that squad in 2012–13, says of Steph, “You could see when he didn’t trust his ankle.” “He didn’t attempt to do the regular actions. He didn’t come to a conclusion and make the normal contact.” Curry suffered right ankle sprains that caused him to miss four games in January 2013, left a game early in March due to the same injury, and worst of all, rolled his left ankle during both Warriors playoff series, making it difficult for him to play against the Nuggets and then the Spurs.
Thus, Lyles brought a novel theory to Oakland. The recent graduate of Northeastern University may initially come off as a bro-ish former athlete, which technically he is because he was raised in Southern California. However, a life of hoops was cut short in his junior year of high school by a disorder known as femoroacetabular impingement, in which the growth of excess bone in the hip produces severe agony. According to Lyles, his infatuation with that body part caused him to become fixated on finding a way to cure sportsmen. Years later, when Lyles was faced with his primary task at Golden State, he would immediately think of the same body area. That is why he was grabbing his derriere pedagogically.
