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He should be in the prime of his physical health right now at 24. Can't see how it'll ever get better from here for him?

What is there left to say at this point? Zion has been fat and overweight his whole life. He literally never worked out growing up because he was genetically gifted and didn't have to, and those habits haven't changed. He's the physical version of the type of kid who was smart enough to coast through HS never doing homework or studying just because he was naturally intelligent enough.

The difference is that pro sports teams don't hand those smart kids 200 million dollars hoping they develop habits that 99.9% of people in their shoes had to spend years of their youth/young adulthood developing to even get to that point. Zion has been a sunk cost since before he even signed his extension. Too fat, too dumb, and too apathetic to ever be an impact player in the NBA except for the impact he makes when he lands on the court after jumping.

He seriously wanted to be a Knick. Then Adam Silver changed the odds in the lottery.

JXL wrote:He seriously wanted to be a Knick. Then Adam Silver changed the odds in the lottery.

Yes the world conspires against the Knicks because the league makes more money when the Knicks suck........wait?

Shocking..

I wish Zion could get hypnotized or something, and come in to a season absolutely shredded, stay healthy for almost all the 82, ball out for like 32/7/5 a game and just conquer everything. Alas, he's gonna be a wash-out worth a quarter of a billion dollars.

Dez wrote:

JXL wrote:He seriously wanted to be a Knick. Then Adam Silver changed the odds in the lottery.

Yes the world conspires against the Knicks because the league makes more money when the Knicks suck........wait?

Gotta take care of that massive honeypot of wealth and international power that is Louisiana, bro.

Bears aren't meant to fly.

Get well soon my guy. I bet there's a medical abnormality somewhere along the lines in the future.

Physical one of a kind. He was Barkley if Barkley was a middleweight.

The kid was the most athletic specimen in high school and it wasn't close.

The majority of the time the Dom/recessive has an input but not with him. His genetics was loaded from both his parents but there wasn't any respite.

It’s really not a surprise that guys with atypical builds(relative to other pro basketball players) like Zion & Chet keep getting injured.

JayMKE wrote:It’s really not a surprise that guys with atypical builds(relative to other pro basketball players) like Zion & Chet keep getting injured.

Have you seen what Zion looked like at Duke and the way he moved? He has access to world class trainers and nutritionist and keeps too much weight on, making him more prone to injury.

MrBigShot wrote:

JayMKE wrote:It’s really not a surprise that guys with atypical builds(relative to other pro basketball players) like Zion & Chet keep getting injured.

Have you seen what Zion looked like at Duke and the way he moved? He has access to world class trainers and nutritionist and keeps too much weight on, making him more prone to injury.

Of course but he was 18 years old, maintaining healthy playing weight and avoiding injuries just weren’t in the cards for Zion. Zion if he wasn’t a pro athlete would probably be significantly heavier

JayMKE wrote:It’s really not a surprise that guys with atypical builds(relative to other pro basketball players) like Zion & Chet keep getting injured.

There's a reason unicorns like Barkley or Magic are one of a kind players. Absolutely everything has to hit just right, including body composition. Even Barkley struggled with his weight, and he was an athletic freak. As a kid Barkley used to do crazy stuff like standing jumps over fences for fun.

I think Zion has more of a Bo Jackson issue than people realize, and yeah his weight problem and fitness is an issue but not the main one.

Hes just so ridiculously explosive that he physically puts too much torque on himself. And his normal gait is slightly suboptimal. What this means is that his biomechanics work against him.

Like he can pull his hamstring if his jump isn’t 100% calibrated because of how forceful and powerful it is. In a way I feel bad for him. But at the same time he’s clearly done none of the preventative care or focused on flexibility, isometric strengthening, recovery, etc the way he should have.

Honestly his case is less unusual than you’d think.

JXL wrote:He seriously wanted to be a Knick. Then Adam Silver changed the odds in the lottery.

that was actually the last year of the old lottery odds when he came out.. and we still dropped

You never want dr Brian talking about you

MaYbE hE sHoUlD tRy Ozempig

Seriously, how lazy can you be as a pro athlete to not take Ozempig (this ad is totally not sponsored)

Dez wrote:

JXL wrote:He seriously wanted to be a Knick. Then Adam Silver changed the odds in the lottery.

Yes the world conspires against the Knicks because the league makes more money when the Knicks suck........wait?

Funny thing is that we wound up with the highest pick of those 3 teams with the highest chances. The 2 teams ahead of us had the 8th and 9th highest chance, so it didn't matter in the end at all. On the other side it must have felt really bad for Phoenix to wind up with the 6th pick in a season you were dead last in the West with 19 wins and seeing 3 other Western conference teams with almost the double amount of wins winding up with a higher pick than you.

So if anything Silver went against Phoenix that season .

MrGoat wrote:MaYbE hE sHoUlD tRy Ozempig

Seriously, how lazy can you be as a pro athlete to not take Ozempig (this ad is totally not sponsored)

Dude you do not want to take Ozempic if you’re seriously training for any sort of competitive sport

EmpireFalls wrote:I think Zion has more of a Bo Jackson issue than people realize, and yeah his weight problem and fitness is an issue but not the main one.

Hes just so ridiculously explosive that he physically puts too much torque on himself. And his normal gait is slightly suboptimal. What this means is that his biomechanics work against him.

Like he can pull his hamstring if his jump isn’t 100% calibrated because of how forceful and powerful it is. In a way I feel bad for him. But at the same time he’s clearly done none of the preventative care or focused on flexibility, isometric strengthening, recovery, etc the way he should have.

Honestly his case is less unusual than you’d think.

bo jackson didn't have an issue; he wasn't fat and never injured himself as a result of being fat

mattg wrote:What is there left to say at this point? Zion has been fat and overweight his whole life. He literally never worked out growing up because he was genetically gifted and didn't have to, and those habits haven't changed. He's the physical version of the type of kid who was smart enough to coast through HS never doing homework or studying just because he was naturally intelligent enough.

This is a good analogy.

Everyone in the NBA is a genetic outlier in the same manner that everyone admitted into MIT is a genetic outlier. Only a very small percentage of the population has the genetic makeup to make it into either institution. No matter how hard I worked out I wasn't making the NBA and no matter how hard I studied I wasn’t getting into MIT. That wasn't in the cards for me, and it probably wasn't in the cards for anyone reading this.

Usually, genetic gifts aren't sufficient for a person to make it into the NBA or into MIT because even if the gifts are very rare there are still far more qualified applicants than spots. Consequently, making it into the NBA or MIT requires an applicant to develop a strong work ethic to maximize their genetic potential.

Zion is an outlier among the outliers. In academic terms he is the hypothetical kid who could take the SAT cold and still nail a 1600. The problem for this hypothetical kid is that when he gets into MIT for the first time in his life, he isn't a total genetic outlier. Most of the people around him, even if less gifted than him, are very close. And there are people who match him in genetic makeup. At MIT his garbage work ethic will cost him.

The NBA exposed Zion’s work ethic. He can’t stay on the court due to lack of conditioning. NBA basketball is very physically demanding. Fans have attacked Chris Paul, Jokic, Melo and other players for their lack of muscle definition when their muscle definition is misleading. Zion isn’t similar to those players. He is very fat. Zion hasn’t developed his skill-set since he entered the NBA over a half decade ago. Almost all his draft peers have developed their skill-set during this time which allowed a lot of them to pass Zion by.