Part of this is Noah being out of shape, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say part of it is him just needing to fill out and play with more weight.

From what I understand, it’s hard to both gain muscle and not gain fat at the same time. Generally speaking, if you try to build muscle, you’re going to put on some weight when you do it, and you’re going to have to work it off later.

Remember back to Tyson’s last year here, he came into the season at something like 250. He was not in basketball shape, but it was also the first time he wasn’t routinely knocked around like a flouncy little rag doll. By the second half of the season he was playing better at his new size, and by the following season he was in good shape.

Now, I don’t know that this is going on with Noah, but I think it’s kind of what we have to expect when we’ve got a skinny kid who we expect to eventually be an NBA center. You can’t change your body overnight and expect there to be no consequences.

I hear all these stories about Yao Ming hitting the weight room right after games, doing everything he can to get bigger. For a seven-footer, 5-10 lbs of lean mass shouldn’t be asking too much.

Denver, than Utah, 4-500ft, back to back, played too hard start of game, played at sea level 4-5 past years, nailed him.
Maybe you can remember a Houston player Hakeem Olajuwon, could only play quarter in Denver and Utah with O2 tanks at the side. Depends on the player, everyone reacts different, but he was hurting for air, not an injury, RBC count low, big huge players, hits much harder if their red blood cell counts are low. Takes six weeks for the human body to build up the RBC’s to get back to normal, not in a couple hours or days.