Editor’s note: Welcome to Jumping to Conclusions, the bonus edition.

All NBA season long, USA TODAY Sports Insiders Sam Amick and Jeff Zillgitt will be analyzing the action every week and making bold proclamations all along the way. And every so often, as is the case with Sam’s claim this week that the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry is destined to shoot more free throws than ever before while re-entering the MVP conversation, a prediction will be worthy of a story of its own. Alas, here is a closer look at how one of the game’s most accomplished players is somehow getting better – again.

When you’re a four-time All-Star and two-time MVP who has won two NBA titles in the past three seasons like Steph Curry, it’s hard to imagine how this basketball life could get much better.

But sure enough, as his Golden State Warriors have stumbled through this early stretch, it has become clear that Curry may not be done improving at this game after all. And free throws, it appears, may now play a bigger part than ever in his superstar formula.

By getting to the free throw line at a personal record rate so far – 7.6 attempts per game, up from 4.6 last season and better than his career-high of 5.1 from the 2015-16 campaign – the 29-year-old is showing a level of late development that should make opponents fear him even more. As if the limitless range wasn’t enough to worry about, or that ballhandling ability that allows him to get through the lane for all those easy layups, here comes Curry making major strides when it comes to the easiest shot of them all. The free one.

Curry, whose career free-throw percentage of 90.2 trails only Steve Nash and Mark Price in the league’s all-time annals, has already tallied double digits in free throw attempts three times this season (he did so just four times last season). For someone with this kind of skill set, who does so many things so well but ranked just 11th among point guards in free throw attempts last season, this is like finding Benjamins in the couch cushions. And according to his longtime personal trainer, Brandon Payne of Accelerate Basketball, this is no happy accident.

“It’s something that we talked about for several years now,” Payne, who has worked with Curry since 2011, told USA TODAY Sports by phone. “As he has continued to develop and mature physically, he has a little more speed and burst that might not have been there a couple years ago. Now when he goes into the paint, instead of absorbing contact, he’s looking to initiate the contact. He’s driving with a purpose. He’s driving looking to finish and initiate the contact, and I think that’s what’s led to this spike in free throws. And I don’t think it’s going to slow down anytime soon.”

When comparing Curry to his point guard peers, this was always the one area where he fell short. Last season, for example, his charity stripe pace was less than half of reigning MVP Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder (10.9 attempts per) and that of the No. 2 vote-getter, the Houston Rockets’ James Harden (10.4). And while Curry’s penchant for three-pointers and running off perimeter screens meant he spent less time in the lane than the probing Chris Paul-types, it was still something of a mystery why he couldn’t draw more fouls.

The difference now is a combination of psyche and physicality. Because Curry has consistently added muscle to his once-frail frame during the offseason, he can handle the kind of abuse from defenders that would have leveled him during his college days at Davidson. And because of his shooting prowess and what it does to all those panicky defenses, Curry can better exploit the extreme ways that teams try to shut down his shot.

“Teams are going to come out and they’re going to push up on him and they’re going to try to take away space from him out on the perimeter and it leaves driving lanes,” Payne said of Curry, who now has four of the top five single-season records for three-pointers made in league history. “And now, he certainly has the ability to get in there, and he gets in there very quickly, and he gets in there not only looking to score but to get to the free throw line as well.

"When you drive aggressively, you’re constantly putting the officials in a position where they have to make a decision. You’re not giving them the out by trying to get around contact … I think he’s starting to get more calls simply because of the posture and kind of the aggression that he is going to the basket with now. I think once the officials have started to realize that he’s starting to do that, then they’re going to look to make that call.”

The scariest part of all for Warriors opponents? They have more elite shooting than most teams even without Curry, teammates like Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson who make it easy for him to either drive and score or drive and kick. And at present, he’s leading the team in scoring (28 points per) despite the fact that his long-range game has been below his norm (38.6% from beyond the arc so far, well below his career mark of 43.7%).

“I think he’s a threat at every spot on the floor now, and that certainly poses a lot of problems for defenses, especially when you’ve got teammates like he has who are so talented and you really can’t help off of anybody,” Payne said. “I think it really adds a new dimension when he gets to the free throw line like that, and I think it’s going to be reflected in his scoring average at the end of the season.”

Translation: Warriors foes will be the ones paying big for all those free throws.

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter @Sam_Amick