Magic Johnson Discussion

The only thing I disagree with is Russell and Randle being meaningless in terms of body fat percentage. It's far from meaningless for them. Randle's is too high if he's getting this tired all the time. I've spoken to some Kentucky fans and they said this is something he's always dealt with and that's unacceptable to me for a professional athlete. It's your job to run that floor, go do it. At 23 years old he should be able to run all day.

I agree that Zubac doesn't need to be in the single digits, but 18% is still bad no matter what. He could change his body dramatically this summer for the better.

Other than that, the argument again comes to the point: I think we're both right and that this board is getting hung up on the words Magic used. You and I and Zen are right that the BMI argument is a poor one because it doesn't take into account musculature, ideal mobility, and because not everyone needs to have a low body fat percentage to be in great shape. I think Zen meant it as a shot, but the point stands: Magic wasn't the most cut up guy on the court but he did fine. The key is he did fine and our guys didn't.

The takeaway from this shouldn't be getting hung up on BMI and BF%, it should be that we're holding the kids accountable to improving themselves this summer. Last summer we heard from Clarkson and Russell and Randle that they were (in no order): better conditioned, better shooters, smarter, more aggressive, more explosive, etc, etc, etc. Did it really seem like Randle was in better shape than he was his rookie year? He may have been stronger, but that doesn't help. Did Russell or Clarkson really look stronger and more explosive? Not really. And none of them really shot the ball from distance a lot better.

I don't know. I still don't understand how this could really be construed as a net negative.

 

Zen you're not the embodiment of your name these days.

 

Thanks real, you put some things in perspective for sure. I do think that Zubac will be under 15% relatively soon, and that's good for him. For Randle, I just wasn't sure how much it impacts his stamina. It's entirely possible that it does, although the kid is not exactly "fat".

 

I hear you. I think Randle can do better that's all. His conditioning is an issue, but no he's not fat. I think if anything he may be carrying too much muscle around right now as well as a little too much fat. If he went from say 256 to 240-245 he'd probably look pretty ripped up. Probably have better stamina too.

 

Just a heads up. Aand yes, I know this is the Magic thread, but I couldn't find the Rob P. thread which I thought we had a front office one

 

This ended up being pretty tame. It was cool of Rob to do it, but there's honestly not many answers he can provide to the questions we really want to ask. He didn't commit to a "no-trade list". He didn't commit to all the young guys. He couldn't say anything about any players on other teams because he can't.

All this did was cement in my mind how serious he and Magic are about improving this team. They have genuinely staked themselves to the task and their intensity to improve is something I already admire. I am more sure of them bringing us around than I was of Mitch the last few years.

 

That's good.

We as fans want to know but as a good negotiator, you should never show your hand.

 

yeah it was really tame, the only surprising aspect of it was that he actually took questions from fans over the phone. Mitch would never have done something like that.

Rob told a lot of the same stories from the exit interview presser so that was kind of boring, but I understand he can't get into details.