Current NBA player couldn’t make it through 5 minutes of Steph Curry workout without puking

Steph Curry isn’t just a gifted shooter. He trains in unbelievably difficult and unique ways to keep his game sharp and his body healthy.

The Warriors have gotten off to a rough start this season but you can’t blame Steph Curry. At 34, he’s on pace to average more than 30 points per game for just the third time in his career, and doing it on a career-high 51.8 percent from the field. The guy should be in the twilight of his career but the way he trains has kept at the top of his game.

Curry’s long-time trainer Brandon Payne made a recent appearance on the Basketball Illuminati podcast and shared this fun little tidbit:

“We’ve had a player, who’s still in the NBA, go through the first five minutes, sat down on the floor besides the door for about 30 seconds, stood up, went outside and threw up, and was done.”

This of course begs two dramatically important questions — who puked and why? I have no meaningful educated guesses about the player but in the name of fun, I’m just going to imagine someone who could actually see the humor in it and picture Robin Lopez. If you’re trying to imagine what kind of challenge could make a fit, professional athlete puke in five minutes, do a little more digging into how Curry keeps his game sharp.

Steph Curry has a legendarily personalized and difficult training regimen

An ESPN feature on Curry and his training regimen from last year offered a few more details on the kinds of drills and regimens that may have broken this other NBA player.

"“As the ball changes hands at the top of the key, Curry, in the right corner, does something counterintuitive, something he hasn’t done the entire possession. He stands still. Curry’s second wind comes from his ability to rapidly lower his heart rate during short breaks, even in the middle of games. It’s something he trains his body to do. Once he’s out of breath at the end of most workouts, Curry lies on his back, and Payne, his trainer, places sandbag weights below his rib cage in order to overload, and train, Curry’s diaphragm.Through conditioning and breathing techniques like this, Curry can often coax his heart rate below 80 during one 90-second timeout.”"

Watching defenders chase Curry through a maze of screens and try to keep him off the 3-point line is pretty compelling basketball. But I can’t be the only one who’d also love to watch Curry just try to take a few of his teammates and opponents through 48 minutes of his personalized training drills.