http://nba.nbcsports.com/2017/06/25...a-ton-of-weight-this-offseason-already-photo/
When I (and some others) called Demarcus fat and out of shape last season in some gamethreads I was met with alot of backlash but now take a look at this. All of a sudden he wants to fix his diet and training regimen? (*cough cough* contract year) Where was this last year or the years prior?? Too busy posing with Matt Barnes and Henny bottles while the team was fighting and clawing for that 8 seed?? GK was right this guy was downright out of shape. As more time passes on i'm more and more content with moving on from DMC, biggest mistake was not doing it sooner. He has clearly benefited from it as it has woke him up and if some of these picks work out then we have benefited too.
1. in a sport without weight classes body fat % is pretty meaningless.
2. the formula you seem to believe in (less weight= always a good thing in basketball) is oversimplified.
3. DMC was never out of shape. He is a professional athlete and he was able to dominate in games using his physical profile. Out of shape in sports means not being able to perform at the personal best and doesn't mean necessarily, what it means for the average person. You can ask professional strongman, powerlifters and weight lifters about what it means to be out of shape in their sport and in the highest weight class (when there are weight classes) the answers won't be - "man I'm simply too fat". Or if you want to concentrate on non strength sports, maybe take a look at the average line backer in football.
Weight only becomes a problem the moment it leads to injuries or to endurance problems or leads to not being able to keep up with the speed of the game.
In fact weight can be extremely beneficial in basketball, when it comes to establishing and keeping position or when it comes to wrestling in the paint.
And here we have the reason, why GK called DMC out of shape and why DMC does his best this offseason to lower his weight.
Both GK and Alvin Gentry want to play uptempo and want to use DMC mainly as a perimeter player, who initiates the offense. Neither wants DMC to go to work down low.
In the mind of these coaches, it's way more important to get DMC as light as possible, than it is to keep his strength.
We can argue that uptempo and perimeter oriented is just the way the league is playing nowadays and that it's therefore mandatory for every player to adapt.
I won't necessarily disagree with that.
But this still doesn't mean, that DMC was out of shape. DMC was/is a mixture of skill and brute strength. All of his career he was used to bully lighter players using his superior weight, paired with his very good quickness for such a heavy dude.
DMC's weight was always a ridge walk. For his prefered playstyle he needed to be heavy enough to bully some players, but quick enough to beat bigger guys with a quick first step. And this playstyle led DMC to multiple All-Star teams and to being in the conversation of the "best big man in basketball". I think it's a pretty safe assumption, that this playstyle did work for himself and that his body was suited extremely well for it. Therefore DMC was not out of shape. He was where he needed to be to play his game.
Now his playstyle arguable didn't lead to team success. Wether this is correlated with his weight or even with his own personal performace, is pretty speculative. But it's a fact, that he didn't win enough with the Kings (you know slender dudes like AD or KAT also didn't post impressive win-loss-records but whatever).
You can always claim, that this league is a run and gun league and that players need to be able to play uptempo at all costs. I get that. I just tend to think, that this mindset will take away DMC biggest strength. The ridge walk between being a bully and being a finesse player.