Lakers News: Ivica Zubac says he’s lost about 20 pounds

Muscle watch 2018 will never, ever stop. The latest subject of the movement that’s hit Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or whatever other social media platform you prefer every summer is Ivica Zubac, whom people have noticed has lost a few over the summer.

Someone asked just how much weight he’s shed, and Zubac was happy to answer (Via his Instagram story):

This is by no means the first summer Zubac has tried to shed some extra poundage. It was a goal of his last season, according to Tania Ganguli of the L.A. Times.

Zubac’s weight loss was either insufficient or (and this is a favorite theory of mine), he shed too much weight. He spent most of the little time he was on the court off-balance and seemed a little too easy to move considering what he hopes to excel at in the NBA (inside scoring, among other things).

Generally speaking, weight loss is a good idea for professional athletes. It helps in any number of ways, both in terms of production and in terms of general well-being. For some athletes, though, being hard to move off a spot is a key component of their job description. Maybe there were other things going on, but as Zubac is one such athlete, the hope is if he’s going to lose weight, he’s at the very least replacing fatty tissue with toned muscle.

It could also be that some combination of the coaching staff, Zubac himself and his team of trainers recognized that traditional, bulky centers were going the way of the Dodo and have rethought what’s best for him if he wants to stick around in a modern NBA. If this is the case, it’ll be interesting to see whether he can make some of those changes without losing what made him an interesting prospect in the first place.

Still, it’s good to see Zubac is putting in the work to slim down. Here’s hoping it leads to a much more productive third year than his second season.