The Peak Performance Project (P3) is a sports performance laboratory based in Santa Barbara, California . Dozens of professional athletes come to him every year, including NBA players. There, for example, a teenager Luka Doncic traveled in the summer of 2015. With state-of-the-art devices, the company collected all possible information about Slovenian: virtues and defects of its playing style, footfall, movement of the feet and arms , strength ... All this to discover how to squeeze out all the potential , physical and technical, before them. The result could not be better.
Two years after that Doncic visit, three P3 workers moved to a Houston gym. There they met another young teenager. Doncic had surprised them, but they had never seen it before: a giant moving like a base and crushing with the force of the greatest pivot they had seen : "It has the greatest peak of strength of any athlete we have analyzed," they said in a report for 'ESPN'. They talked about a high school player: Zion Williamson.
The number one in the 2019 draft will debut this Wednesday in the NBA. He will do it at home, before the Spurs, in a Smoothie King Center in New Orleans that had already sold all the locations of the course before the season began. After his exceptional preseason (23.3 points, 71% in the shot, 6.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 27 minutes), Williamson injured his meniscus on October 21 without even officially debuting. He went through the operating room and the initial eight weeks of discharge have doubled due to the caution of the Pelicans.
At stake, the player's career, the future of the franchise, which with him soundly aspires to Playoffs, the future of the NBA and many millions of several companies : Jordan Brand, 2k Sports, Gatorade and Panini, among others, signed in summer with Zion agreements that exceed 100 million dollars . His shirt broke sales records after the draft and his debut in the Summer League totals more than ten million views . "The last time there was this level of interest in a boy was with LeBron James," explained one of Panini's marketing chiefs.
During these months, the Pelicans have taken the opportunity to thoroughly analyze Williamson's physique. They want to have the most data to try to prevent any other injuries . "A boy with that weight can't play in the NBA," Charles Barkley claimed. But the 129 kilos and 198 centimeters of Zion are not the "big problem."
In the studies conducted by the P3 company, hundreds of NBA players discovered what were the major risk factors in knee injuries : the first three were mechanical. How the foot rotates during the jump , how the femur rotates in relation to the shin and the ability to control the landing using the hips after a jump. The fourth and final would be the weight . That is, weight is not an independent factor, but multiplies the danger when the other factors are out of control. That's what the Pelicans have focused on during rehabilitation: they study the length of their steps, the movement of their hip, their knees , where they put the weight of their body, whether on the toes or on the floor ... Big Data
“ The key to Zion's longevity will be his lower limbs. Make it fit, acclimatize and feel comfortable, ”explains David Griffin , General Manager of the franchise. "We have to work to be flexible enough and have the right mechanics, and support that flexibility with the necessary strength to control it, because it gains muscle faster than anyone, " he acknowledges 'ESPN', remembering that in summer, in just one Training week with the team, he was able to gain four kilos of muscles. One of his coaches sums up the goal: "If you're not moving well, it doesn't matter if you weigh 300 pounds or 175, there's going to be a problem ."
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