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The following are purely my opinion and I don't know much because obviously I can only judge from the limited clips the public get to see

NBA players training is embarrassing.  I have yet to see one player do some real training.  Have you seen the recent Zach Lavine training video?  Didn't see one heavy weight training exercise, just lots of reactive work.  Hmmm..  Zach is 6'6" 185lbs, 46" SLRVJ...  Yeah he really needs reactive work...  Same with Wiggins in this video.

Both are VERY skinny and VERY athletic.  They would not only benefit athletically, but from all physical aspects if they are fuckin put under the barbell and improved their squat by 100lbs and gained some mass.  This is very do-able in the offseason for these guys since they never really did any real weight training in the past. 

Also, that hip thrust looks like the same weight as his bench which I doubt is 400lbs.

I have heard that the trainers either don't know shit, OR not allowed to/ or scared to do some real training incase they injure them and this will be too much of a risk to do so on a million dollar athlete. 

It makes sense, but any real S&C coach will still be able to train them safely.  Doing some 3x8 Squats is not dangerous at all if the coach knows what he's doing.  No need to be doing shit like 1 RM squats or anything.  Football and track and field athletes do real training all the time and they can't risk getting hurt neither.

Whatever the reason for NBA athletes training like pussies, where they never make any real noticeable changes, it's ridiculous the way they treat the athletes by doing a bunch of unnecessary useless exercises where they don't even progressively overload and doing "fun" exercises so that the NBA player (who doesn't know any better) thinks he is getting some good training but honestly is not making ANY gains.

Basketball players for the most part are very reactive, great movement efficiency from hours of playing every day since they were kids, and hardly any explosive strength deficits.  Most just need improved strength and who's to say getting bigger/stronger won't help athletes such as Zach and Wiggins who are skinny even compared to their NBA counterparts.  I'm not saying put them on GOMAD and gain 50lbs, but adding 10lbs of mass on these guys glutes/quads/hams by progressively overloading them with just squats and RDL's or something will do FARRRRR more for them than all the pussy crap they're doing. 

THe music REALLLLY didn't fit with the video too.  They shoulda used some R&B cause that's the intensity of his training

He starts off with 2 plates but he ends up using a stackload of them.. but i dont blame you for not getting far enough to see that .. it's super embarassing to think this is a professional athlete "training" ..

I saw the whole video but I somehow didn't notice that LOL...

Still embarassing..  Can anyone name ANY NBA player who made athletic gains in their career?

The ONLY time I have ever seen anyone make physical changes, are the ones who decide to put on weight and get bigger (mostly upper body).  The athletic were always athletic since HS/college and the unathletic always stay unathletic it seems.



The ONLY player I can think of is Damian Lillard.  He SEEMS to have gotten more athletic this past season.  Dunking on people much more explosively than before.  If you see his pre-draft documentary License to Lillard, he does SOME actual training.  Not GREAT, but makes Wiggins and Lavine look like pussies

Ive noticed that too...even with super explosive athletes like LeBron, Drose, Wade, etc. They tend to stick to light weight speed strength training thats highly unilateral based. I remember a vid of DRose training pre injuries and he was jump squatting some 30lb DBs or something.

I will note this...its hard to make gains and keep that type of conditioning and even harder to keep that strength throughout the season. You'd have to have an insane recovery strategy to even go heavy 2x a week when you play 3-5 games a week plus walk throughs, etc. I once read most NBA players lose ~10lbs over the course of the season which I dont doubt.

The only two Ive ever read about doing significant weight training in season...MJ and Kobe. Although Id say Dwight Howard probably lifts a bit, especially upper body, in season.

There is a happy medium here..

Obviously skill work is of most importance, however if you are the best of the best and supposedly super competitive, getting stronger/more athletic should also be a priority.  It doesn't have to be super emphasized, but I think we can ALL agree that they can definitely do much more productive stuff in the weight room than what we have seen from them time and time again. 

Right. It's a waste of time to go the gym only to do that gimmicky stuff. However, maybe to them going to lift iis more of an active recovery thing? where they get to mess around a little without training hard (i guess that's what happens on the court?). But that said, if you are going to the gym to lift weight to get stronger and more athletic then it's clearly a waste of time. It depends on what they're trying to get out of it.

Chris I agree during season but we're talking about off-season training. No doubt you can't lift heavy throughout the season but i imagine once the season starts you could maintain 85% of your offseason gains by lifting once or twice a week with reduced volume and stuff during the season. Maybe, i dont know. Their oncourt training must be very hard but they get to eat a lot of food and have access to recovery resources we can only dream of. Something is definitely amiss.

Yes... They can still lift 1-2x a week at low volumes and make sure they eat LOTS of calories.  Kelly B has an article about keeping gains during a rigorous season and it can apply to these guys too.

That's because you are talking about maintaining a 400-500 squat. Wiggins could maintain 250-350 surely..

If Zach Lavine got a 400+ squat, he would be 50+/ TFB level, possibly Wiggins will hit 50 too.  They have perfect jumping bodies with still lots of room for improvement from strength..

Crazy to think about