2023 NBA Draft Megathread
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Good lord he's not 80 lbs overweight
If you are losing weight your tissues/tendons will suffer regardless, especially if you are losing a lot of it
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Early in their careers both were in pretty great shape. Both players changed their games late in their careers which is when they put weight on. Both were also durable… Zion has showed his weight and body ain’t working right now.
Zion is one of a billion. Maybe one of seven billion. I wouldn’t use him as a comparison point for anyone, and he’s hardly the only player with injury issues. Jon Issac is a beanpole and he can’t stay healthy either. Some guys just can’t stay healthy no matter what their body composition is.
Certainly would not consider myself an expert trainer, but I do think people are overplay the “fat” angle with Zion and its role in his injuries. The idea that he would just be fine if he lost weight isn’t correct imo, and Saint is probably onto something with the constant dieting. When you’re on a deficit, recovery is worse. That’s just biology and even though Zion is an alien it applies to him too.
Certainly would not consider myself an expert trainer, but I do think people are overplay the “fat” angle with Zion and its role in his injuries. The idea that he would just be fine if he lost weight isn’t correct imo, and Saint is probably onto something with the constant dieting. When you’re on a deficit, recovery is worse. That’s just biology and even though Zion is an alien it applies to him too.
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Look… all I know is I’ve played the sport 20lbs heavy at times and my knees, feet and back suffer. I’m sure there are good foods and training he can do to help his tendons and such while he is reducing his weight. However it happens he needs to take more force off his lower body or I doubt he stays healthy long enough to impact things. Maybe there are other things… like the way he walks that indicate there are other imbalances… but his current plan ain’t working.
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What evidence do we have that he is on a deficit? He lost some weight over the summer but let’s not act like his body is dwindling away. Were his previous injuries during times where he was cutting?
It may be a factor but many dudes have credited losing weight with allowing them to stay healthy… shooting from the hip CP (went vegan and lost a few pounds) and Tim Duncan (dropped weight late in his career when his knees were not doing well).
Skinny people can get hurt too… doesn’t mean weight isn’t a contributing factor with guys like Zion. NO was concerned with his weight… guessing his diet is not ideal.
I’m just saying that calorie deficit = worse recovery. That is a biological fact. Maybe he’s not dieting, but Saint’s line of thinking is logical and it makes sense.
It’s also impossible to say this why a guy did/didn’t get hurt because of xyz. We are all different, all NBA players are pretty much outliers to begin with, Zion is an outlier among outliers, and we don’t know the alternative. When Kawhi got injured I saw media head/ hot take bot was quick to say, “this is proof load management doesn’t work”. We really don’t know that because without load management things could be even worse with Kawhi. We can’t compare it to the scenario where he didn’t load manage. There’s all this criticism of modern sports medicine because NBA players seem to be getting more significant injuries, but I don’t believe for a second that we’ve gone backwards. There are other factors at play.
NBA players get injured all the time for all sorts of different reasons. Zion’s weight is probably part of the problem, but it’s overstated imo. I brought up skinny guys because it shows that not every injury situation is due to weight. There are skinny guys who can’t stay healthy and fat guys who never get hurt. There’s more than one factor at play. Just because us mere mortals feel better after losing a few lbs does not mean it’s the thing that would save Zion’s career.
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Ehhh… it’s something he could control unlike some of the other stuff… that is why his team and people in the media as well as fans bring it up. I would also say you could be at an energy balance instead of a deficit or a slight excess and he’d be just fine. He seems to balloon up and that isn’t to help his joints and recovery.
He needs to control what he can control and there is pretty obvious improvement he could have with regard to his weight. Maybe it won’t make a difference but I think it’s fairly obvious removing some of that stress on the body would help.
How overweight is he? He’s shorter than both Lebron and Doncic, and weighs 30 and 50 pounds heavier than each respectively.
6’ 6” at 280 lbs and relying on jumping higher than anyone is simply an untenable proposition if he actually wants to play basketball. No one can convince me he has to weigh that much.
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Darkwing Duck
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Raymond Felton on the weight questions?