OZY Daily Dose

Brandon Payne is haunted by his past, and Stephen Curry is paying for it.While the six-time NBA All-Star and two-time league MVP makes splashing buckets look oh so easy, it's Curry's longtime trainer - and his unwavering attention to detail - who continues to have the biggest impact on Curry's free-flowing game. And now he's shaping the next generation of transcendent guards."Some days I don't wanna come to the gym and give it 110 percent," admits Curry, who has worked with Payne since 2011.

This is the latest edition of OZY's Huddle newsletter, which brings you a smart, flavorful conversation-starter for your next game watch party. No stale takes allowed. Add The Huddle to your OZY email subscriptions here.It didn't take long for most NBA superstars to drop Team USA like a bad habit. At least for one non-Olympics cycle. Ahead of this fall's FIBA World Cup, which begins Aug. 31, most NBA A-listers have declined to ball this summer.

When I texted my brother just past midnight on Sunday, I implored him not to go to work in the morning. It wasn’t safe. I had just found out via Twitter that Omar Abdullah, former chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, had been placed under house arrest. Later, Mehbooba Mufti, another former state chief minister, was also detained. This was unprecedented. India had sent some 35,000 additional troops to the valley, already one of the world’s most militarized zones.

When I was 10 years old, I passed out in church.It was the 1980s, and I was attending a Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Boston. At least once a year, Cardinal Bernard Law would say Mass at our school's house of worship. It was a big day on the school calendar. Everyone had to be on their best behavior. As the head of the archdiocese, his eminence was to be respected. The nuns - our teachers - were especially strict on this point: no monkey business.I woke up in the school nurse's office.

For several years now, eating insects has been touted as the next big way to save the planet, with many media outlets trumpeting the insect-eating revolution. And for good reason. Rich in protein and fiber and with similar levels of fatty acids as those found in fish, insects such as mealworms, caterpillars and crickets, among hundreds of others, are healthy food options. Raising insects also produces far less greenhouse gas emissions and uses much less water than beef, chicken or pork.

Before my first daughter was born, I made the deliberate decision to be a work-from-home dad. But those dreams of midweek picnics and lazy afternoons spent reading Dr. Seuss? These were immediately replaced by a more frazzled and fecal reality, but I'm still not complaining. Three kids, seven years and myriad parenting fails later, I'm no closer to getting an office job.

For more than nine months I taught the high school equivalency course full time inside California's High Desert State Prison for male felons. My students were sex offenders, ex-gang members and ex-cops - people who couldn't be in the general prison population. The hours were long and difficult, security was crucial and I was always closely watched, along with the prisoners. I kept catching viruses from the inmates and struggled through long days inside the prison.

Warning and disclaimer: This is going to be a letdown. In 2015, when I was 32, I tried to kill myself. For the second time.When I woke to discover I was alive, which was the last thing I wanted, my mind raced with scenarios of how I could change that.I'd lost the most precious thing in the world to me: control. After having spent three days in a failed-suicide coma I was being moved from a medical floor at one hospital to the psych unit at another.

It's an age-old question - about the very act of getting old. And one of the best answers to the question of how best to grow old comes from the late British philosopher Bertrand Russell. At the age of 79, Russell, who died 50 years ago this February, sat down and penned a 1,000-word essay that is one of the most moving and insightful commentaries on achieving "a successful old age.

Forty-five years ago, an estimated 1 billion viewers worldwide tuned in to see an unforgettable boxing match in October 1974, one that took place at 4 am local time in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). In that match - long known simply as "The Rumble in the Jungle" - a 32-year-old Muhammad Ali knocked out undefeated heavyweight champion George Foreman in the eighth round, reclaiming the title in the process after a seven-year hiatus.But it almost didn't happen.