@@National Basketball Association

Andre Drummond: “Well 2012 the game started changing a bit. Nobody really talked about diet. In our training rooms, we were eating chicken tenders! We had fried chicken in our meal rooms! [Pistons in 2012] had a chef but they weren’t cooking what we eat now. It was buffet style, soul food every day”

  • November 12, 2023


> Well, the era I came in—it was 2012—that’s when the game started changing a little bit. Nobody really talked about diet or what you should eat. I remember in our training rooms, we were eating chicken tenders! We had fried chicken in our meal rooms!

> We had a chef [with the Pistons in 2012], but they weren’t cooking what we eat now. It was buffet style, soul food every day.

> I learned about diet quick. You can eat whatever you want at that age. I remember stopping at McDonald’s before games when I first came into the league! But maybe after year four, I started getting that wear and tear on my body, didn’t have the right nutrition, I was slowing down a little bit and gaining weight. When I started noticing those changes on my body, I thought, alright, now is the time to really focus on my diet. That youth is no longer with me.

25 comments

  4. Didn’t Embiid have serious issues when he came into the league where he would drink like whole pitchers of Shirley Temples in hotels?

    Also I seem to recall Dwight Howard eating like 10 candy bars a day at one point

  5. Most wholesome shit ever was when Giannis talked being addicted to oreos when he first came to America

  10. Slowly Drummond giving clues on how he never realized his full potential.

    I respect his transparency, but kind of a slap in the face.

  11. Old sports anecdotes are my favorite.

    I’m hockey you had guys literally smoking a pack of cigs at intermission.

    In the NFL you have LT laughing about sending hookers to his opponents the night before big games

    In the NBA you got soul food, dice and admiring Gilbert Arenas’ gun collection

  12. Remember the peanut butter and jelly obsession sweeping the sport? Seems like only 5 years ago.

  13. I bet deep down Andre Drummond is a Chad. It’s not his fault the pistons didn’t build around him, they tried to make him the number 1 guy but he wasn’t good enough.

    On a title team he was a 4th option at best but could never be a number 1 or 2 guy. 12 year veteran whose still only 30 years old. Can’t really roast him because that’s a good career to have

  14. It’s funny how it can feel so frustrating that the rest of us mere mortals trains so much, tries to eat correctly, stretch, prepare for basketball as much as we can and guys like Drummond and Dwight Howard gets up from bed, eat whatever they want and roll up to the court and still are utterly dominant lol.

    But it’s always been this way since ancient gladiator times. The best of the best are naturally blessed that not even shitty food or a shitty work ethic can slow them down much.

    Imagine how Bo Jackson’s teammates felt.

  16. If you’re an NBA athlete burning all that energy are chicken tenders really that bad for you? Good protein and calories. A lot worse stuff you could eat.

  17. Dwight Howard talks about his candy bar addiction, use to eat like 10 a day. He said the inflammation from eating so much gave him his lingering injuries

  20. I remember there was a SB Nation article predicting who the best player in 5 years would be, and Drummond was #1.

  21. Tyson Chandler had a private chef around that time. There was a “Day in the life” video from when he was in Dallas.

  23. This is why players last longer into their 30s nowadays. The effects of healthier diet and less drinking and drugs is absolutely game changing for these guys’ primes

  24. I cooked for them right out of college (2014) for a year and we fed them shit.

    Only team that brought their own organic foods was Portland.

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