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Discuss, is this the year he finally turns it around?

He will find it again in no time.

Damn, he looks downright anorexic compared to how he normally looks

Slim Luka
Fit Zion
3pt Shooting Ben Simmons
Healthy AD
Ready-to-play Kawhi

NBA is almost back boys!!!!

20lbs for 20 games

Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

Only 20??? Jet2 Holiday would've shed 50 lbs. Fire Zion's medical team

he looks way too skinny to the point i’m skeptical if he actually overhauled his diet or went straight to ozempic

need to see it on the court on how it translates

luka clearly lost weight but he still has plenty of baby fat so i wonder if he took this road too but he looked noticeably quicker in eurobasket and looked less bony than what zion looks rn

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

It's more complex of a thing than simply suppressing hunger to lose weight. There's some potential side effects from taking these that can affect performance on the Basketball court. In Sports, it's mainly getting used by endurance athletes who get a massive benefit from carrying less body weight in their sport, but that's a lot different type of demand on the body than a sport like Basketball where you need power, speed, quickness and agility.

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

Is that suitable for nba players? Anyone I’ve ever seen on them looks sickly and not healthy

The ebbs and flows of life.

As certain as there is life there will also be death.

As certain as fat Zion will appear during the times of a calamitous event, skinny Zion will eventually cycle into our plane to grace us with a few good months of ball.

But eventually, just as leaves on the trees fall and regrow, Zion will once again get hurt, or put on enough weight to hurt himself and spend the rest of his season pounding wing stop and watching anime.

The cycle continues.

azcatz11 wrote:

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

Is that suitable for nba players? Anyone I’ve ever seen on them looks sickly and not healthy

I would think probably not in almost every case for NBA players. We aren't talking about someone obese here where the benefit of something like Ozempic drastically helps that situation so much over any potential downsides. The vast majority of NBA players can eat lots of junk food and still have trouble keeping weight on because of how many calories are being burned everyday with the lifestyle they have. For the ones that actually manage to keep on too much body fat, you're probably looking at more of a small tweak than needing a massive change.

azcatz11 wrote:

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

Is that suitable for nba players? Anyone I’ve ever seen on them looks sickly and not healthy

I got a thread locked 1.5 years ago mentioning this as a possibility for Zion, things change.

As far as the sickly/not healthy thoughts, I assure you there are some incredible results going on as it relates to pure weight loss and the science is getting better.

That being said, I do not think an athlete in their 20's should result to this pharmaceutical solution. Decreasing appetite also decreases protein, caloric intake, etc. While it may reduce weight, it also would absolutely reduce strength due to loss of muscle mass. Plenty of studies suggest the same.

It's a miracle drug for a portion of the population, NBA level athletes are not one of them.

im gonna be real with yall; these days, you have no idea whether a photo is shopped or legit.

PushDaRock wrote:

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

It's more complex of a thing than simply suppressing hunger to lose weight. There's some potential side effects from taking these that can affect performance on the Basketball court. In Sports, it's mainly getting used by endurance athletes who get a massive benefit from carrying less body weight in their sport, but that's a lot different type of demand on the body than a sport like Basketball where you need power, speed, quickness and agility.

The side effects are minor for most people, and the potential downsides, like muscle loss, can be overcome by focused exercise and a protein-rich diet (both of which are already part of an athlete's lifestyle, presumably). These meds are used by bodybuilders...

Obviously, I'm not advocating that every NBA player use GLP1s. The vast majority of them don't need it. But players like Luka, Zion, and others who are hindered by their weight and are more injury-prone because of it, could absolutely benefit from it. I'd be surprised if Luka's and Zion's rapid weight loss isn't a result of taking GLP1.

Does Zion even qualifies for Ozempic? I thought you need to have a condition due to obesity to qualify?

azcatz11 wrote:

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

Is that suitable for nba players? Anyone I’ve ever seen on them looks sickly and not healthy

Well, except for all the people taking it that you don’t know about.

dk1115 wrote:im gonna be real with yall; these days, you have no idea whether a photo is shopped or legit.

There's a vid

playoffs wrote:

PushDaRock wrote:

playoffs wrote:Ozempic and other GLP1s are widely available now to anyone who can afford them. Zion, Luka, and any other athlete who needs to lose weight and keep it off would be crazy not to use them. At this point, if they regain the weight, this means their medical team is not doing its job.

It's more complex of a thing than simply suppressing hunger to lose weight. There's some potential side effects from taking these that can affect performance on the Basketball court. In Sports, it's mainly getting used by endurance athletes who get a massive benefit from carrying less body weight in their sport, but that's a lot different type of demand on the body than a sport like Basketball where you need power, speed, quickness and agility.

The side effects are minor for most people, and the potential downsides, like muscle loss, can be overcome by focused exercise and a protein-rich diet (both of which are already part of an athlete's lifestyle, presumably). These meds are used by bodybuilders...

Obviously, I'm not advocating that every NBA player use GLP1s. The vast majority of them don't need it. But players like Luka, Zion, and others who are hindered by their weight and are more injury-prone because of it, could absolutely benefit from it. I'd be surprised if Luka's and Zion's rapid weight loss isn't a result of taking GLP1.

Bodybuilding is a "sport" which requires getting down to extremely unhealthy body fat levels that are not at all sustainable for lengthy periods of time. That's to get a certain aesthetic look but they are nowhere near optimal performance in the gym, sleep is poor and they generally feel like crap overall during the process. That's really not comparable at all to going through the long grind of an NBA season and what is needed for that to perform at a high level.

When you're suppressing appetite, that's a tricky thing to manage longer. Even once they get to the target playing weight, do they just stay on it indefinitely? Tweak the dosage? What happens if they get off it?

Many times, these rapid weight losses also don't work out so well performance wise as well because a lot of muscle mass gets lost during the process and then there is the adjustment to playing at a lower body weight which can actually affect things a lot. Losing 30 lbs, being quicker and leaner might sound good on paper but it's an adjustment not having those extra pounds on you where all your movements are a bit different. Someone like Luka relies a lot on contact, bumping guys to create space. Not having those extra pounds on him could mean he needs to adjust his game not being able to bounce off guys like he used to. That might be good or bad, we won't know until we see how it looks.

It's certainly possible to drop 20pounds in a few months without ozempic.