Why did it take a knee injury for the Pelicans to realize Zion needs to start losing weight?

[Clyde Frazier]

Shouldn't this be addressed since day 1? Everyone was saying Zion has to lose weight or else he'll suffer an injury. Apparently Pelicans didn't think it was necessary

Are you completely speculating or is there an actual report that the pelicans want him to lose weight now?

[AdagioPace]

making Zion losing weight means going against the general "hype" after all, against what people want to see: "a flying meaty tank". Everybody involved will need to downgrade their expectations, long term, unless they make a deal with the devil...

[reflex35]

I think they were pretty quick with the realisation comparing to Nuggets (Joker)
Different games but Nikola is probably just plain lazy with all the talent he has.
As for Zion it's not only Pels, Nike is saying the same.. And these guys don't want to "loose" their business because of weight issues and therefore should push Zion to drop some weight ( which in the end will be good for him too)

[Johnny Bball]

Is it possible that they were aware at a prior point?

And didn't want to say it until the point was made for them?

Can't be easy telling your guys they are overweight.

[dhsilv2]

Or his natural build is to be like 350 pounds and he’s already thinner than what he’d be w/ a normal lifestyle. He may need to actually diet if he wants to be thinner. Who knows.

And I really don’t think Charles Barkley looked this heavy early in his career.

Chuck was this heavy in college...dunno about in the nba. I never noticed if he was. Then again zion is built differently

I think Chuck had lean muscle, while Zion seems to be a compact ball of muscle.

Chuck just always had more body fat than even Zion. Chuck was far too explosive to have some kind of "long and lean" muscle.

[THE J0KER]

If you compare Zion Williamson Weight/Height with Weight/Height of all other active NBA players you will realize he is just another NBA player.

Or not?

[JellosJigglin]

Zion naturally carries a lot of muscle. He would have to completely lay off the weightlifting and focus mostly on cardio to slim down. I'm betting he'd still retain most of his muscle without even lifting weights. But I don't think he needs to lose that much weight since he doesn't seem "fat". Maybe just 10-15 pounds.

[snaquille oatmeal]

The fat shaming in this thread though.


Lol just kidding

[manlisten]

I think it was moreso Zion himself who didn't realize he needed to lose weight.

[Hornet Mania]

It's human nature to be optimistic. There were probably people within the organization who thought it would be preferable if Zion lost weight but when he's dominating in practice and in preseason at a level few rookies have reached they probably felt it was prudent to ride things out and see if he really could defy the odds.

At this point that optimism should be gone and weight loss should be a priority. If for some reason Zion really can't lose that weight, which is possible since he's hardly fat as-is, then the Pelicans should try to maximize the next 5-7 years. Even in the best-case scenario he won't last much longer than that at as an elite player putting this load on his knees, he can still be a force of nature for awhile but it wouldn't hurt to be aware that his career prognosis is probably shorter than most.

[Pablo Escobar]

He should cut some weight. Might make him jump even higher. Which would be insane.

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[NO-KG-AI]

So as I asked before, what is the weight limit on knees? Guys have played above 250 and 260 for very long careers? I guess LeBron and Barkley should be the comparison since we need people with incredible lift and aerial based games, but LeBron was easily up over 260+ for a lot of his career. What is the weight limit, because people are saying if he's 270+ that the injury is inevitable, so I want to know what is the weight capacity on a knee.

We don't really have countless freaks to compare him to in terms of weight/explosion, the list is very small, but the list is also very decorated with guys with long long long productive careers.

Like anyone else, until injuries become a major issue for Zion, which they have never been, there is no need to push the panic button. Some peoples bodies, believe it or not, are capable of handling the feats that said person is born capable of. The same way some guys are freaks in terms of leaping, that person's biology allows for more ridiculous ability to withstand punishment.

TLDR, we shall see. Knee soreness, and missing a preseason game isn't cause for panic. A major knee surgery or back injury is where we start crossing fingers and being concerned.