Jared Sullinger, who was cut by the Suns in February, is looking to return to the NBA. This weekend Sullinger will display his skills and recent weight loss in Brooklyn at The Basketball Tournament, with several professional teams in attendance, including the Nets, Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors (link via Twitter) passes along, from the mouth of Fran Fraschilla.
Rob Oller of The Columbus Dispatch interviewed Sullinger about the power forward’s struggles, progress, and aspirations. Sully says he weighed as much as 320 pounds when he was with the Celtics. “I lost a year of basketball directly because of what I have done — my weight and my eating habits,” he said. Sullinger explained that his unwillingness to lose weight led Boston to release him in 2016 and the Raptors to trade him to Phoenix in late February. The Suns released him the next day.
Sullinger has now been a vegan for three weeks and is down to a svelte 285 pounds. The grand prize of The Basketball Tournament for many is $2MM, but for Sullinger, the true treasure could be an NBA or overseas contract.
In five NBA seasons, the Ohio State product has averaged 10.8 PPG and 7.5 RPG. In two consecutive seasons for the Celtics, Sully averaged a career-high 13.3 points per contest.
He needs to lose 35more lbs and learn the 3 and he could be a 5 in the new NBA.
Learn the 3 and play the 5?
I think meant learn to shoot the 3
He can already do that. He was actually decent in Boston and I think people forget that. He just has to get in shape to make it. I hope he does.
fad dieting until he lose enough muscle mass and fat to be a nba stiff
3 whole weeks huh? Well damn, I’m convinced. Sign him up!
Tell me CLE couldn’t use him if he were the same or better than 13.3ppg.
I still remember how he was talked about being the #1 overall pick in the draft until his back issues popped up.
I do too. That’s why I was so thrilled when Boston initially drafted him.
Yeah between him and the late Fab Melo in that draft, I thought Boston got two steals. Obviously I was wrong on both counts.
Pat Riley likely told him during his visit a couple of months ago that he isn’t going to get where he wants to be until he takes care of his body. Our guys are looking to be in world class shape. The best players in the game, like LeBron, are in world class shape. Hopefully, he hasn’t just been watching his habits for 3 weeks, and he just made a recent decision to go vegan as part of his regimen. If it’s only been 3 weeks, that doesn’t say anything, and the weight loss could be from doing the opposite of what he was doing, which is also bad
Wuss cracking bruh, Sully in da howse…I’ma new man… I bee heroine free for tree hole hours bruh. Ya u gots dat write bruh, dats 180 minutes bruh. Dats sum deep shat bruh.
I hope he comes back to Boston for the minimum. At this point he’s looking at a partial guarantee for 1 year I don’t really see the harm in bringing him into camp. If he’s actually getting in shape and he can produce like people thought he would that would really help considering they need another rotational big.