https://youtu.be/hgEieKzNRDc
From my consumption of “behind the scenes” NBA content, I have gleaned that most NBA players have their diet at least partially planned out for them by the nutritionists that their team employs. I have also gleaned that most teams employ chefs to make delicious meals that also meet the dietary needs of their players. For example, Josh Smith, while he was on the Hawks, would eat trout sandwiches, and he eventually got the entire team eating trout sandwiches, courtesy of chef B-Rod. My assumption is that trout sandwiches were a vital component of the carefully created nutrient regimen that Smith adhered to in order to stay at peak physical performance.
I bring all this up because I’m pretty sure that Alexsej Pokusevski is not taking advantage of the nutritionists and chefs that the Thunder certainly employ. Just look at him. Does that look like the kind of player who is following dietary advice from experts? No. He looks like the kind of guy who orders a plate of food at a restaurant, eats two bites of it, and then is super sociable for the rest of the meal so that he has an excuse for not eating anything. He has an army of professionals who are willing to feed him calorie-dense meals to promote weight gain, but he’s content to nibble on protein bars and sip plain water while assuring everybody that he’s “just not hungry right now”.
I know what it’s like to be a skinny dude who can’t add mass. I eat a normal diet, and I pig out on unhealthy food on a fairly regular basis, but I’m still radically underweight for my height. I’m living proof that there are some people who are just natural-born stick figures. But the difference between me and Pokusevski is that there is serious financial incentive to make Pokusevski bulkier, not just from his perspective in terms of getting NBA contracts, but from the Thunder’s perspective, getting the most potential out of their draft pick. They’ve probably diverted resources from their “normal” players in an effort to figure out what to do about their skinny Serb who feels full after eating one french fry.
The calorie counts Pokusevski should be targeting are probably ridiculous, given that he’s frickin’ seven feet tall. Eating 10,000 calories a day would be uncomfortable for me, but Pokusevski and his team of nutritionists can figure out a way to make it happen without causing too much gastrointestinal distress, even if it means Pokusevski has to spent most of his free time chugging peanut butter smoothies and eating spoonfuls of pure alfredo sauce in between reps at the bench press.
Maybe concerns over Pokusevski’s dangerously slight frame are overstated, because he just went up against Jonas Valanciunas (one of the bulkier centers in the league right now) and came away with an impressive 23 points and 10 rebounds. If he can do all of this while looking like one of those creepy stick bugs, then all he needs to do is add enough mass to not be at risk of spontaneous limb breakage, and he should be good. No need to turn him into some roided-out muscleman.