How do you know you don't need it? Your knee pain may be caused by more than just weak VMO's, as was the case for me. Just test it out -- foam roll and stretch the IT bands for one day. If your knee feels better after it, then you know your pain may ALSO be caused (to some extent) by tight/overactive IT bands.
My story with jumpers knee looks like that: I got pain, play couple of games and made break but after 2weaks pain came back. then I went to physiotherapeutist and had knee tapping, ESWT , a lot of stretching and this exercises about which I did mention earlier. After that I had no pain anymore till the early start of the season ( so it was about after 6 months after recovering of my jumpers knee) and it wasn't even pain like jumpers knee, just small pain, maybe I was just too tired after gym and jumping+bball practises. But it wasn't hurt me and I could practise easily, but I used knee strap to be just safety
and it was pain more like osgood schlatter than jumpers knee. So even if I feel any pain I know exactly what to do. regular stretching help me a lot and sometimes just simple squats+lunges and max. 2 weeks and I'm free of pain