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Washington Wizards rookie Rui Hachimura said recently that he added 10 pounds of muscle during quarantine and his head coach has certainly noticed a difference since returning to the team.
The Wizards had their first team practice on Thursday night and returned to the floor first thing on Friday morning. Wizards head coach Scott Brooks complimented his players for staying in shape away from basketball and praised Hachimura for the work he did in the weight room.
I think it will help him. I think every player through hard work will get stronger day by day. This time off, you can tell he put some time in. He really locked in on the weight and conditioning program that we had in place with our strength coach, Blair. It’s going to help him. It’s a very physical game and as the long season takes place year after year, it wears you out.
So, if you have that extra muscle on your body that you can absorb some of the hits that he will take, and he is an aggressive player around the basket, but you can see he is stronger around the basket but it’s not going to slow him down or take away his athleticism which is going to help. We want to get our players stronger and he has definitely gotten stronger these last four months.
Brooks previously said Hachimura improved his jump shot during quarantine and said it has more arc on it now. He believed his shot was a little flat to begin the season but now believes the rookie can develop into a good 3-point shooter.
Based on his added strength and improved jump shot, Hachimura certainly put in a lot of work during his time away from the team and it could very well result in increased production over the Wizards’ eight seeding games, and potentially beyond, at the Walt Disney World Resort.
The Wizards will return to action on July 31 vs. the Phoenix Suns.
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