/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54934945/screenshot.155.0.jpg)
The Los Angeles Lakers may have hired a new director of strength and endurance training Wednesday, but Julius Randle hasn’t been sitting around all summer waiting to be told how to train.
The third-year forward is eligible for an extension this season, and he’s wasted no time over the summer, clearly trying to follow the Lakers front office’s edict that he needs to get into the best shape of his life this summer.
Randle appears to be on track to do so, and multiple videos of his insanely gritty offseason routines have surfaced this month, with the latest dropping Wednesday.
The newest video features a noticeably more muscular, less doughy Randle doing some type of ridiculous, airborne sit-up with a medicine ball as well as doing as a pseudo-catwalk with what appear to be incredibly heavy weights.
Randle said he wants to be “a beast” next season, and while muscle doesn’t necessarily make one a better basketball player, he certainly appears to be on the right track:
Julius Randle's body transformation/conditioning continues. Trainer Amoila Cesar is a marvel. @LakerFilmRoom pic.twitter.com/bYom6VpyVH
— Carrastealth (@Carrastealth) May 24, 2017
I’m tired just from watching that, and recency bias has me feeling like Randle might make a run for MVP next season.
Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here, or listen to our latest episode where he talked about the Lakers offseason work with Chris McGee of Spectrum Sportsnet), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.