After Mavs coach Rick Carlisle danced around his issues with Chandler Parsons‘ new physique, saying he was “not quite in shape,” earlier this month, he was more pointed in his assessment yesterday, and Parsons had some fun at his expense on his Instagram account.
After Parsons was 4-of-12 from the field — including 1-for-6 from deep — against the Thunder on Friday, Carlisle came right out and said Parsons needs to cut his weight:
“He looked tired out there tonight to me, and his shot is short,” Carlisle said, by way of ESPN Dallas’ Tim MacMahon. “He’s working on losing some weight. He’s a little bit heavier than he’s been. He’s up over 230, and we want to see him get down to at least 225. That’s a work in progress, and tonight’s one of those nights where I think the extra weight was a hindrance.
“An increase of 18 to 20 pounds is just too much,” Carlisle continued. “We talked about it today. We talk about it a lot. He’ll get there, but he looked tired out there and a little heavy-legged, and the extra 7 or 8 pounds aren’t helping.
“I don’t mean to call him out in public or ridicule him, but it’s just a fact. He’s an important guy for us. We just need him to get to his right conditioning and weight level so he can play his best because we’re going to need him to play a lot of minutes over the course of 82 games.”
For the record, despite Parsons struggling with his outside shot, he also snagged six rebounds and dished six assists in a shade over 20 minutes of action against OKC. That’s some solid all-around play and comes close to a triple-double performance if he played near 36 minutes. Also, Parsons was 2-for-4 beyond the three-point arc against his former team in their first preseason game on Tuesday.
Parsons is 6-9, and was listed at around 215 pounds during his first three years with Houston. But he lifted weights in an attempt to bulk up over the summer when he avoided playing for fear of injury during his free agency period. The thought was that he might back up Dirk Nowitzki at the four spot with the added pounds. Parsons came into camp weight approximately 235 pounds, but Carlisle wants him down to 225 or 220.
The former Rocket doesn’t necessarily agree with Carlisle’s assessment of his conditioning and weight, but didn’t lob any grenades when asked about it after Friday’s preseason loss:
“His opinion of heavy is different than mine,” said Parsons. “We kind of go at it every day about it. At the end of the day, I respect his opinion. After training camp, my weight fluctuates. I’ll get it down.”
While Chandler didn’t come out and say Carlisle was wrong, he did post a shirtless picture to Instagram with a pig emoticon in the caption, a peculiar passive-aggressive response to talk he’s out of shape.
Based off this picture alone, we’re pretty sure Rick Carlisle would think we’re close to morbid obesity.
What do you think?
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