Rick Carlisle: Parsons too heavy
DALLAS -- Chandler Parsons, whose wallet got much fatter when he signed a three-year, $46 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks, also focused on bulking up his physique this summer.
As far as coach Rick Carlisle is concerned, Parsons added too much weight.
For the second time since the Mavs reported to camp, Carlisle made a point to note Parsons needs to shed weight. The 6-foot-9 Parsons, who was listed at 215 pounds in his three-year tenure with the Houston Rockets, reported to training camp at approximately 235 pounds.
Carlisle believes the increased weight has created conditioning issues for Parsons, who had nine points on 4-of-12 shooting, six rebounds and six assists in 20 minutes during Friday night's preseason loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
"He looked tired out there tonight to me, and his shot is short," Carlisle said. "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."
Parsons focused particularly on lifting weights during the free-agency process, when he didn't play basketball to protect himself from injury. Primarily a small forward, Parsons felt he needed to add strength to play significant minutes at power forward, a role he could fill for the Mavs when Dirk Nowitzki rests during the season.
Carlisle has made his opinion clear to Parsons, who doesn't necessarily agree with his coach on the matter but is willing to shed some weight.
"His opinion of heavy is different than mine," said Parsons, who shot 1-for-6 from 3-point range against the Thunder. "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."
Asked about Parsons' weight gain on the first day of camp, Carlisle dryly remarked, "One man's bulking up is another man's not quite in shape yet."
Ten days later, Carlisle was more pointed with his public commentary on Parsons' conditioning.
"An increase of 18 to 20 pounds is just too much," Carlisle said. "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."
On Saturday afternoon, Parsons posted a photo to Instagram to show off the state of his physique.
