By nearly any metric, Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry is the greatest shooter in basketball history.
The four-time NBA champion has led the league in total made three-pointers eight times, shoots a career average 42% from beyond the arc, and perhaps more than any player of the last three decades, has changed the way anybody under the age of 25 plays basketball in a pickup context. (Go to your local court and count how many players opt to shoot a jumper from 22'+ out rather than attempt to drive in for a layup.)
But ask any unc/old head who's grousing about the demise of old school basketball whether Curry simply stands in the corner and fires away only when open, and they'll begrudgingly shake their heads no. Even haters of modern hoops understand that Curry's greatness as a shooter is a direct result of him also being one of the most active off-ball players ever.
Over the course of his career, Steph Curry has run on average a little over two miles per game, a good deal of that in the form of hard cuts, short bursts, and rapid changes of direction around screens, until he's shaken his defender and found a sliver of daylight to get a high-arcing moonshot off.
However, this season at age 37, while Curry has looked incredible when suited up for action, he is on track to appear in just about half of the Warriors 82 regular season games, due to what sounds like an unlikely injury diagnosis: runner's knee.
That's right. A basketball player you could argue belongs on the sport's Mount Rushmore in terms of sheer impact on the game may be unable to drag his faltering Warriors team to the playoffs this year for the same reason your cross country squad's fourth runner missed the district championships in 2023. (To be fair, Curry's offseason training regimen does include some weighted vest hill sprints, evidently.)
Runner's knee may be an uncommon diagnosis in the world of team sports, but to readers of this article, it's something you've likely experienced yourself, or at least seen a friend struggle with. Researchers have concluded that runner's knee -- more fancily referred to as patellofemoral syndrome -- is the most commonly dealt with running injury among adults.
So whether you're a new runner, an established cross country star, or apparently, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player award-winner, it can't hurt to understand what runner's knee actually is, how to avoid it, and how to treat it in the unfortunate event it befalls you. We spoke with Emilio Cassaretto, a physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach working at Moment Physical Therapy and Performance in New York City, to get the scoop.
So what is "runner's knee?"
It's basically a catch-all term for patellofemoral pain, which means "knee pain." It's a diagnosis of exclusion-meaning it's the last thing you'll get as a diagnosis with knee discomfort once you've ruled out all the big and bad things like an ACL or meniscus tears. It's commonly called "runner's knee because" it's very prevalent within the running population, whereas "jumper's knee" -- more of a patellar tendonopathy -- is something you'd more commonly see in a basketball player.
What causes runner's knee?
Very simply put, it's a response to overuse or a signal that your body wasn't quite ready for what you were pushing it to do, like a big jump in training intensity or volume.
How can you treat it?
It's fundamentally about pain management. For runners, this usually doesn't mean fully stopping running. It means looking at a person's training then decreasing volume or intensity, and making changes based on how badly it hurts.
A good example of what you can try is uphill running, because it puts less pressure on the knee. That said, running back down a hill can make the pain worse, so you might adjust your training to focus on structured uphill treadmill or elliptical sessions, in conjunction with some form of strength training.
It's a tricky injury, and if you've had lots of knee pain before, that often means it'll take longer for the discomfort or pain to fully subside. It would probably be a better prognosis for a runner who hasn't experienced knee pain before, who clocked the pain early on and started adjusting their workload accordingly.
Unfortunately there isn't a specific timeframe for the pain to go away-which is why Steph Curry has been out for so long. WIth jumper's knee, you usually experience a warmup effect, so if you loosen the knee up adequately, you can actually train or compete through it more easily. With runner's knee, though, you might even have pain while resting. So once you begin to experience less pain in daily activities like sitting or standing, that's usually an indicator you can start increasing training again.
How can you avoid it?
Be smart about training -- don't increase volume or intensity too quickly. And make sure to incorporate some strength work into your routine.
Most people recognize these as important, but what fewer people do is de-load periods... Something like a plan where you de-load every four-to-six weeks where both volume and intensity drops, then pick back up at a medium volume and intensity, before ramping back up and repeating. It's like a ladder you're climbing up by occasionally and intentionally going back down two pegs before climbing back up three or four.
But beyond that, I like to remind athletes that pain is multifactorial. Sleep, nutrition, these things matter a lot. Make sure that when you're working hard, you're fueling and recovering adequately. When you don't, you have less room for error or overdoing it.