Re: work ethic and offseason

[Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu (Kestutis Kveraga)]

--- You wrote:
I'm stating the obvious, but there really is no evidence that McCarty or
anyone else in basketball doesn't fit a two-hour daily workout into their
offseason schedule. We are inferring things big time, based on reading about
Waltah's passion for his music hobby. In the end that guy always looks fit
to me and his greatest strength is his spectacular stamina.
--- end of quote ---

First, let's separate strength from cardiovascular fitness. I'll talk about the former first: 
You're right, Joe, we don't have any hard proof that he doesn't work out - I don't follow him around to see what he does throughout the day. However, the indirect proof is his body: his muscle definition and tone are very poor. Unlike Antoine, whose muscle definition is poor because of relatively high (for an athlete) bodyfat %, McCarty seems to have pretty low bodyfat %, so one should be able to see his muscles if they weren't so tiny. Believe me, if you train with weights a lot, as I do, you can tell whether the person lifts weights or not, even if he's wearing a shirt. And Walter is definitely not an ironhead. He also strikes me as a guy who doesn't eat much/regularly, which again is not conducive to building muscle.
As for his cardio fitness, I'll grant you that he seems to be in good cardio shape, as one would expect from a former HS runner with a low BF%. And that's great. However, the days when being in good cardio shape was enough to be effective in the NBA (in addition to having bball talent, obviously) ended several decades ago.  This is especially true for a forward. McCarty gets knocked off balance a lot, both on offense and defense, because of his high center of gravity and lack of mass in his lower body. When you're off balance, you can't shoot or defend very well, which is why his best offensive night was hitting 6 three-pointers, and why he looks best defensively when it's "poultry in motion" time (and we know how well that works!). 
Kestas