( ( ( ( ( nba bubble ball 2020 ) ) ) ) )

Shaq was miraculous. Unique.

Shaq also didn’t walk and run like a nose tackle

joel embiid with a robust 9 points in the first half against a team that has one guy with any sort of chance of guarding him

Shaq was miraculous. Unique.

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, August 3, 2020 9:14 PM (thirty-two seconds ago)

how do those two words not also apply to zion

I hope Zion makes it work but he showed up out of shape after 4 months of quarantine, moves like no other player in nba history etc

Shaq putting on all that weight and being able to carry it for 10 years in the nba is exceptional. Will Zion be able to do it? I highly doubt it

from a body composition perspective, young shaq was light years ahead of zion iirc

Young Shaq had a great build. Then he went to LA and put on a ton of weight and somehow it still worked.

shaq was listed at 325 as a 27 year old in 1999... zion is listed at 285 now and prob won't even put on much more weight as much as he will just replace fat for muscle over time. he'll prob hit 300 once he's that age but he's going to be much more lean than shaq was at an older age even tho he's much pudgier now. you can tell zion's frame will be able to hold muscle & we've never heard anything negative about his work ethic. i'm not going to judge his physique too harshly post-injury and post-pandemic... btw he put up 23-7-5 in 25 mins tonight and was physically dominating everyone on the court in the crunch time lmao

well never know how much shaq or zion really weigh

that game turned on plays in which zion got the ball w/ less than 5 seconds on the shot clock and put his shoulder into ja, sending him back 2 feet before laying the ball in over top of him and a second where he drove baseline and elevated thru 3 dudes for a lay up

i really have the opposite view... i think eventually he'll be healthy and the world will be more normal, he'll be able to get in shape, and there won't be anyone in the nba outside of like embiid who will be able to handle his physicality

rookie shaq was listed at 300! he had to have been over 400 at some point

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a1/99/18/a199180a07d201f3105a7de3ded23c6d.jpg https://www.celticshub.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/shaqretiresx-large.jpg

it's one thing if zion's knees break down but i rly don't get the vibe that he's going to eat his way out of the league

yeah injuries is what worry me hes such a tank and plays with so much force jumps so high etc, carrying around the extra weight obvs isnt great for that

hopefully with an offseason of nba level training he can drop 50lbs or w/e

yeah i'll feel better once zion has time to seriously change his body and add muscle. as we see above, young shaq was basically 100% muscle and there's no real comparison to him.

their games are so different too

Zion leaps high and often, runs the break hard, and makes very hard cuts (witness the exploding shoe incident). It's his knees and ankles that will get torqued around most. If they hold up, it seems like everything above the knees will do fine.

shaq was listed at 325 as a 27 year old in 1999... zion is listed at 285 now and prob won't even put on much more weight as much as he will just replace fat for muscle over time. he'll prob hit 300 once he's that age but he's going to be much more lean than shaq was at an older age even tho he's much pudgier now. you can tell zion's frame will be able to hold muscle & we've never heard anything negative about his work ethic. i'm not going to judge his physique too harshly post-injury and post-pandemic... btw he put up 23-7-5 in 25 mins tonight and was physically dominating everyone on the court in the crunch time lmao

If you think Zion is gonna have a healthy career at 6’6 300, ok! Shaq not a great comparison for that

This isn’t a moral question. For however long Zion’s career lasts his absolutely insane physical presence will make him a great player. But if you ask me, 6’6 290 pound nba players have an expiration date

derrick white! wow.

lebron is 6' 8" and likely played at or around 300 pounds for most of his 20s and is gonna play 20 years

zion's problem isn't weight it's just the composition of his body... if he puts in the work to get in better shape i don't see why he wouldn't be able to carry the weight. as a senior in high school (two years ago) he was in good shape. if he can stay healthy (no evidence yet he's particularly injury prone) and able to work out consistently i'm absolutely placing my bet on "zion is a dominant 15-18 year player in the NBA" and not "zion washes out of the nba before 10 years"

there's a group that is like the shawn kemps and larry johnsons ... and another that is like the charles barkleys and karl malones. zion feels like the latter to me

lebron played at 300? really??

during the heat years i def remember windhorst type ppl talking about how bron was playing at about 300 even tho the heat were listing him at 250 or w/e

he def made an effort to slim down the second go round in cleveland tho... remember the first few months were super weird bcuz he couldn't finish at the rim even against big guys who sucked at defense

that's crazy, i mean i trust windy et al on all things lebron but i just don't remember him ever looking that big

there's stuff online where ppl speculate about leborn playing as high as 295... idk it never seemed crazy to me

reddit thread where lebron says on rj & channing frye's podcast that he's weighing 295 https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/6nnzbm/lebrons_weight/

bleacher report article w/ matt moore citing scuttlebutt

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1751682-evolution-of-lebron-james-post-game

lebron was big in his heat years... i bet he was playing at 275-280. 300 prob a bit much but there was a point where he was built like a defensive end

275-280 makes more sense to me

i cld see it bron is huge

philly is going to escape with a 1-point win over the spurs

god and the spurs gutted out that 4q to be in a position to win. last 10 seconds were not ideal.

there's a group that is like the shawn kemps and larry johnsons ... and another that is like the charles barkleys and karl malones. zion feels like the latter to me

Zion is built like a football player, he’s fucking HUGE, there’s no comparison for him.

This is when Charles Barkley was considered a fat guy


https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/c30bdb6c33f7916a017d27f400468892461a707e/c=11-0-292-374/local/-/media/Montgomery/2014/06/15/0615aucol.jpg?width=280&height=374&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp

in other fat player news, i feel like the jazz gradient uniforms make everyone look like they have wide hips

you can also be built like blake griffin or amare and barely have a 10 year career it’s pretty random

Has the solution to the mystery of Blake griffin’s injuries never occurred to you

The 300 pound guy with the 45 inch vertical may have more in common with Blake Griffin than you think

brow is crazy

Larry Johnson is the player that reminds me a bit of Zion. Dude could shoot for a big guy.

That UNLV team looked like men playing with highschool kids, I still can't believe Duke got them that second time.

This dude was 22 at the time.

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/basketball-final-four-unlv-versus-georgia-tech-moses-scurry-picture-id162034746?s=612x612

The 300 pound guy with the 45 inch vertical may have more in common with Blake Griffin than you think

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, August 3, 2020 11:39 PM (four minutes ago)

sure but again even if that's considered a pretty bad outcome, blake will end up playing 13+ years in the league

ultimately i just think some guys have bad knees and others don't. maybe zion does maybe he doesn't but one minor knee surgery doesn't tell us much yet.

I loved Nikola Pekovic. I rooted for Nikola Pekovic. But I knew what would happen. That much weight in nba basketball doesn’t last. Look at the statistics for 7 footers over 300 pounds.

Realistically, I don't think anyone on ILH, if handed the #1 pick in the last draft, would have spent it on any player other than Zion. Too gifted, too unique, too exciting to pass up for anyone else.

There’s something to be said for drafting a guy with the understanding that you probably only get 5 years from him. The trailblazers got one healthy season out of Walton and it was a title.

I loved Nikola Pekovic. I rooted for Nikola Pekovic. But I knew what would happen. That much weight in nba basketball doesn’t last. Look at the statistics for 7 footers over 300 pounds.

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, August 4, 2020 12:30 AM (one hour ago)

ok but pekovic played in europe for 6 years before he came to the NBA. im reading his wikipedia.... he was first team all euroleague at age 23... zion is 20. and this is before we even get into the obvious athletic differences between the two

the idea that zion is going to play 5 years in the NBA... i'm not sure what that's based on. there would have to be something medically wrong w/ his knees like on a brandon roy level but we've never heard that about zion

the precedent i guess is like andrew bynum? i really don't put zion in that category

philly is going to escape with a 1-point win over the spurs

― call all destroyer, Monday, August 3, 2020 10:49 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The mojo around this team is so bad right now. I watched the Butler interview on Reddick's podcast again this week and it just convinced me that the team needs to be blown up: trade Simmons, fire Brown, bring in shooters to space the floor for Embiid seems like the smartest move I guess. Not going to happen though, which is discouraging.

unless they make a run this year you gotta think brown is gone at least