Golden State Warriors talisman Stephen Curry will be needed more than ever in a season in which the team will not have the services of Klay Thompson for the first few months. The All-NBA guard has taken the time to recover, refuel and strengthen his core this offseason, knowing he'll have a big task on his hands heading into 2019-20.

According to longtime trainer Brandon Payne, the focus hinges on getting the two-time MVP as fresh and mobile as possible:

“Movement and recovery are the main focus this offseason,” Payne told Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area on Tuesday. “We want to make him stronger, but we want to at first make sure that he’s moving at optimal levels.

“We don’t approach this in terms of thinking his shot numbers are going to up or anything like that. It’s more a matter of trying to make him the best version of himself. If we do that, we’ll be satisfied and he’ll be prepared to play 82 games, which is our goal going into every year.”

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Some are expecting Curry to be load managed through the course of the season, especially if the Warriors are within striking distance of making the playoffs and/or making a deep postseason run. Payne isn't expecting that to be the case, but noted Curry will be playing more than the workload he has seen over the course of the last five years, which had him playing around 34 minutes per game and under:

“The load management thing is not that big a deal as long as you recover properly between workouts and games,” Payne said. “But, yeah, we know it’s going to be a heavier load. That’s why a heavy emphasis this offseason has been on creating a solid recovery process, something that we can work on and refine between workouts and carry over into the season, and that can be easily repeatable on a daily basis.

“We don’t have (Curry) walking around in bubble wrap, but we are being a little more intelligent about how we’re loading his body.”

Curry will likely play close to the 36 minutes per game he played during the 2013-14 season, also expecting his volume to increase as the Warriors try to make up for the temporary loss of Thompson and Kevin Durant's recent departure.