The NBA season seems to be all blending together right now. The draft was Wednesday night, free agency begins on Friday at 6:00 p.m. EST, and then training camp opens up on December 1 before the December 22 tip-off.
For rookies, their season ended in early March due to the global coronavirus pandemic. That threw a wrench into everybody’s plan and threw the basketball schedule out of whack. Even in a normal year, the NBA schedule can be a grind for rookies due to the number of games played and the travel compared to college.
The NBA has put together a plan to play 72 games in a condensed amount of time in order to try and get back on a normal schedule for the 2021-2022 season. Players have to be in their best shape so they can withstand the grind and be able to perform.
Philadelphia 76ers rookies Tyrese Maxey and Isaiah Joe understand this and they have been working on their bodies in order to be ready for anything.
“Shooting was one of the main focuses I had, but another thing I really, really focused on was diet and body,” Maxey explained. “Just because the NBA season from what I heard can be grueling, especially for rookies coming in, and then with the whole COVID-19 situation, we didn’t know until a couple weeks ago when they announced that December 22 would be the start of the season. So, we didn’t know when the season would start and we were all clueless and my thing was I didn’t want to get ready, I wanted to stay ready.”
Maxey played 31 games in his one season at Kentucky and that number is not even half of what a normal 82-game season would be. Meanwhile, Joe only played 26 games so getting their bodies strong and ready is going to paramount for them.
“For me, it’s just working on my body,” Joe added. “Getting bigger, getting stronger, that’s something I’ve really been hitting on this summer and I’ve been making great strides towards my goal. I’m just continuing to doing that and continue to work on every aspect of my game. At the end of the day, I want to be the best shooter on the court at all times so I’m going to continue to work on my shot, continue to work on my ball-handling, and become a well-rounded player.”
With training camp getting set to begin on December 1, Maxey feels like he is completely ready to go and ready to help this team right now. That is mainly due to the fact that he was able to continue to work out in order to prepare for this next step. He even feels ready to help spread the floor for the team’s two stars.
“I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life heading into this training camp that’s going to start December 1 and I think that was my main two focuses,” he said. “Just shooting because in today’s age and being on a team with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, they cause so much attention so open shots are going to be there just because of the attention they cause. It’s going to be hard to be on the floor if you can’t knock them down.
Then the body part, just getting my body right. I feel like I added three or four more inches on my vertical which is really amazing. Those two things I’ve been focusing on.” [lawrence-related id=39325,39322,39317]