Jared Dudley was an extremely influential part of the Los Angeles Lakers roster during the 2019-20 season when the Lakers won the NBA championship. The veteran is very well respected by the players that were a part of that particular team, even the stars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Davis has been out since the 17th of December with an MCL sprain, missing over a month of NBA games. In that time, the Lakers have a 6-8 record and it's pretty evident that they need their second star to return to the court. While AD is nearing a return, it seems that he wants to do some other work while he's still in rehab.
The Brow has been trying to figure out how to lose some weight, reaching out to the aforementioned Dudley for advice. Dudley, who is a coach with the Dallas Mavericks now, revealed on the Underdogs podcast that his weight loss while being an end-of-the-bench player for the Lakers is what led Davis to reach out to him.
“I lose 20 pounds in-season, which is almost impossible to do that at the time for the Lakers, and I’m not even playing.
"It’s so funny, now AD has the same injury now and now he’s calling me ‘Hey, what did you do?’ Cause he saw me. ‘Jared’s in the weight room doing cardio an hour before practice. He’s sweating and now it’s practice time.’ And I don’t get to practice. It’s the top ten guys. But he sees me going crazy and now practice is over, now I’m in the weight room doing stuff for my knee.”
With the Lakers recently applying a small-ball strategy, a leaner Anthony Davis coming in to play at center would be a handful for any team to deal with. If AD can stick with whatever advice Dudley has given him, his return to the Lakers could provide them with an even bigger boost than they are already anticipating. The Lakers have a 22-22 record after their recent win over the Jazz and will need to step it up significantly in the second half of the season to put themselves in a good position to make noise in the playoffs.
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