When the Ben Simmons-Brandon Ingram debate raged before the NBA Draft, it was clear the top two prospects of the 2016 class were a study in contrasts. At his best, Simmons could be a transcendent player who redefines a position. Ingram, on the other hand, has a clear template to follow in Kevin Durant. Simmons has multifaceted concerns like his inability to shoot and his inconsistent effort, and Ingram has a big one: He’s really skinny, maybe upsettingly so. Even with a massive weight gain in college, he’s got a long way to go before he looks like he has an NBA body.
However, it no longer seems that Ingram will continue bulking up at such a rapid pace now that he’s a Los Angeles Laker, primarily because it’s unsafe to do so. Tim Grover, a longtime NBA trainer who’s worked with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, outlined the problem with skinny prospects trying to fill out all at once to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes:
“That’s how they’re going to fail in the NBA,” Grover says. “[Weight gain should be] a slow process. These are basketball players. These aren’t body builders. They move. They perform. They have to perform out there. So they know how their body feels. You can’t just pack all this amount of weight on there and expect them to still be able to have the shooting touch and move the same way.”
Throughout his Duke career and leading up to the draft, ESPN reports that Ingram was eating 5,000 to 6,000 calories per day spread across six meals. He described the constant gorging as “sickening,” and if it sounds like heaven to you, wait until you have to do it for a year.
To their credit, the Lakers seem like they are content to let Ingram follow the Durant timeline, with gradual weight gain year to year. Head coach Luke Walton said, “He’s young. He’ll grow into it,” and GM Mitch Kupchak insisted the process would happen “naturally.”
(Via ESPN)
