Round Mounds? Not Anymore

In this age of obesity, it's comforting to know that most serious basketball players have relatively low body fat percentages. Unlike some sports (football linemen, sumo wrestling) where extra pounds help you keep your position, basketball simply requires so much running, jumping, and change of direction, that being obese is simply not acceptable.

Even those players whom we think of as fat, are only relatively so. Charles Barkley (above) is a good example:

In a Sports Illustrated article from 1984, his preseason fitness testing before his Junior year revealed his body fat percentage to be 14.5%. The average adult male ? 15-18 %

Now I'm not saying that Sir Charles didn't like to eat (see ginormous Krispy Kreme above), but his girth was always compared to his ectomorphic (look it up) basketball playing peers.

And yes, even professional basketball players can gain too much weight for their own good


(Charles to super-sized Oliver Miller - "You can't even jump high enough to touch the rim, unless they put a Big Mac on it" or Charles to Stanley Roberts: "Hey Stanley, you could be a great player if you learned just two words: I'm full.") . But players have learned the importance of keeping lean, and players who want to make an NBA-roster have learned how to keep their body fat percentage down.

Body fat % has been part of the NBA Draft Combine since 2003. Back when it first began to be measured, more than 1/3 of would-be draft picks at the combine had body fat percentages of 10% or higher, and a few players actually showed up with body fat percentages over 20% (don't think they had very long NBA careers).

These days, the body fat percentage at combine is much lower, with only 7 of the 50 players showing 10% or more (and the highest was AJ Price at 12.4%) at the 2009 event.

So here's another reason to play basketball -- participation and success often go hand in hand with healthy weights (even if you eat the ocassional donut).

Happy Father's Day

I had the pleasure of being involved in the Eric Montross Father's Day Basketball Camp this past week. Eric and Laura Montross have been running the camp for 15 years, with proceeds benefitting the North Carolina Children's Hospital (a great cause).

The best thing about this camp is that it allows both the children (boys and girls) as well as their fathers, to participate in the drills, games, meals, etc.

I and some of our resident physicians, along with volunteers from the camp, ran the (younger) campers through stations similar to what college athletes are asked to do at the NBA Combine each year.

In 50 minutes of "well-controlled chaos", the boys and girls were measured (height, wingspan), tested (vertical jump, 3/4 court sprint, lane agility, flexibility) and given a peek at their future (estimated adult heights).

I got to calculate their adult heights (based on a multiplier-method formula) and enjoyed seeing the happiness in the eyes of those who were told that they would be taller than their mom/dad.

I expect that most of the father's were equally happy when their children shared this information with them. After all, don't all parents hope that their children will outgrow, outperform, out-do them as adults?

Happy Father's Day to you all.