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.