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Add Sleep To The List Of Things Zion Needs To Relearn

Clear your calendars! After a rigorous last few months of reteaching Zion how to walk, run, and jump, today is the day our guy takes his first steps in an NBA uniform.

After seven long months of waiting, salivating, and postulating, basketball fans finally get to see him in action. But this should be news to no one. For the last three days, ESPN has been stuffing it down our throats nonstop via email, television, Twitter; you name it. Is Jimmy Pitaro adding foie gras to their OTT offering? I'd pay the $4.99 a month for that.

Speaking of Zion and food... there's been a little too much fat-shaming going on around these parts, and I'm just plain sick of it. Not quite as ill as Zion probably gets after emotionally eating a box of Cafe Du Monde beignets following a tough home loss but... it's close. 

Instead of blaming Zion for his sugar cravings, we need to investigate what might be causing it. No one has been asking the tough questions until now. After seeing Zion, who's played a total of zero NBA minutes, fall asleep during crunch-time of two crucial games, I put on my big J Journalist hat and started digging.

I reached out to Dr. Dimi Barot, an extensively trained, board-certified neurologist and sleep specialist who has recently begun working with professional athletes, coaches, and teams - including superstar NBA players - as a sleep consultant. 

When I asked Dr. Barot why Zion might have been dozing off on the bench in an otherwise stimulating environment, he replied that he suspects Zion suffers from underlying sleep apnea, which interrupts sleep and is a widespread (and grossly underrecognized) sleep disorder among male athletes. Suboptimal sleep impairs cellular metabolism, hand-eye coordination, endurance, mood, and concentration.

Risk factors for sleep apnea include any one of the following: dozing, sleepiness, snoring, mouth breathing, jaw profile and a thick or muscular neck. African-American men are particularly vulnerable as well. Zion fits all of the risk factors above. Dr. Barot believes optimizing sleep could be a game-changer for Zion since doing so could have a massive impact on his athletic performance, well-being, and his future career. 

It turns out the key to unlocking Zion's greatness might not be just relearning how to run, walk and jump, add sleeping to that list as well.