The Raptors will soon find out if Marc Gasol’s reconstruction was worth the effort

In view of this strange NBA season, the Philadelphia 76ers have unveiled a bronze statue outside their practice facility. It was an image of Charles Barkley, the Hall of Fame forward, carrying a crushed two-handed mark. And if the pose was iconic, the silhouette was captivating. Barkley – known throughout his career as the Round Mound of Rebound – was, in the artist’s representation, an incredibly slender specimen.

As Barkley also joked about the presentation: “I don’t know if I’ve ever been so skinny.”

But thin, if it was never the natural state of Sir Charles, it has been the NBA trend for some time now. More than six years since LeBron James spent a low season notoriously wiping out carbohydrates ahead of his prodigious return to Cleveland, it’s now not uncommon to see big-name players spending considerable effort to steal unwanted weight from their physicists. In an ever faster league where traditional weight seems to become less and less useful, weight loss is widely considered to be superior. Witness one of the top-profile fat loss projects of the NBA pandemic-induced break: Marc Gasol, the 35-year-old Raptors center, spent his quarantine time clearing more spare wheels from his center section.

It looks great in photos. And the transformation seems intelligent, at least in theory; dragging less weight should reduce the load on Gasol’s well-used knees and often abused thigh muscles. He hopes it will rejuvenate a post-season season that saw him score a low career average in points per game (7.6) while shooting a dismal 42 percent off the field.

But Gasol’s weight loss has also raised a question that cannot be answered yet – certainly not based on the 10 minutes of play that Gasol was allowed in his debut with Disney during the Sunday Raptors’ scrimmage against Portland. What will Gasol’s most elegant structure do for its ability to maintain its position, no matter its reputation on parade for its liqueur?

“Your ability to hold your position and … to kick in, bounce, block, that kind of thing. Is this influenced? Bird of prey coach Nick Nurse was saying Sunday. “He’s still big enough, he’s still strong enough, and there aren’t many guys who are going down in the post and supporting you and throwing you around because you lost 10 or 15 pounds, I don’t think. This would be the thing. I’ll have to take a look. “

This is not Gasol’s first round with a dramatic shedding of physical baggage. As a high school student in Memphis, Tennessee, where his family moved after his older brother Pau was drafted by the Grizzlies, Marc earned his reputation as a skilled but mediocre center. Back then, his takeaway meal was a huge or three size McDonald’s combo. He joked that he was such a devoted patron of golden arch fast food near his high school that he financed various renovations and redevelopment of the place.

In the following years – when he went from being the homeless brother to a star in his own right – he tried to eat vegan. Tried to eat pescatarian. It became paleo. Exactly what he’s been eating recently is anyone’s guess; Gasol hated sharing these details recently, preferring to talk more about his team than himself.

But he has already talked about these things before. In the summer of 2014, when he was a member of the Grizzlies who had lost 23 games from the previous season to a sprained knee, he shed something in the neighborhood for £ 50 during a low season. What followed was Gasol’s best statistical season of his career measured by the player’s efficiency rating (PER), not to mention his only turn as the first all-NBA team. What also followed: the five-year deal worth $ 113 million (US) that expires at the end of this pandemic season, after which it will become a free agent. That is to say, Gasol tends to approach the years of the contract with extreme dietary discipline.

“When you get older, you realize you’re not invincible,” Gasol said in 2014. “The knee injury showed me that I’m not an iron man. Not being able to do what you want to do on the pitch sucks.”

What led to your dramatic 2014 restyling? He started, he said, mainly by cutting pop and candy from his routine.

“Even if you could say that diet soda in front doesn’t mean it’s good for you,” he told Memphis’s Commercial Appeal newspaper. “My body is not like Mike Conley’s. Eat candy all the time. I can’t eat candy. It’s the way my body is built. As you get older, you learn more about yourself. “

If we have learned anything about human nature, it is that for many mere mortals the pandemic has brought with it the potential for a dietary disaster. The nurse said the Raptors, with this in mind, spent the coronavirus-induced break holding weights twice a week for the players “just to try and keep their pulse.” Responsibility was paramount.

“Almost all of them came back pretty well, close enough to what they left behind, playing wisely weight,” Sunday nurse said. “Obviously there were some guys underneath, a couple of guys eight or 10 or 12, but they cut it in half. We just tried to manage it where we probably still have a week or two left before trying to achieve optimal game weight. They will do it by playing. This is a big part of those guys who maintain their weight by playing. “

Maintenance is one thing. Minimize is another. And it will be worth seeing if this iteration of the cancellation of Gasol’s contract brings something similar to the same fruit as the last one. He is not the only seven-footer in the NBA to lose considerable pounds. Denver’s Nikola Jokic also spent the break losing weight. And perhaps both parings will demonstrate improved performance.

But it is worth mentioning the warning story of Kevin Love, another great stellar man. In view of joining Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014, this after being the key piece of the trade that brought Andrew Wiggins to Minnesota, Love, in search of becoming faster and running longer, dropped about 30 pounds from his frame. And the immediate results were not stellar. Later he would complain about the post and paint fights.

“I’ve become too skinny,” he would have said later.

The NBA trend may be slim, but moderation is perhaps a key too.