As social media becomes a monster which cannot be fed, so has NBA players taking to Twitter and Instagram with videos depicting their intense workouts.
Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard took his most recent workout video in a different direction.
https://twitter.com/dame_lillard/status/1041068734561968128?s=12
In it, you can watch Dame going through his very real drills: knocking around tennis balls with a racket while dribbling, hoola-hooping, weaving through cones while being shot at by a Nerf gun and wearing a cape, shooting layups while being smacked by a pool noodle, and missing tons of shots—all to the Rocky theme in the background.
Clearly, Lillard finds all the late-summer workout video hype a little silly.
Especially when fans react to these videos the way Inside Hoops did to Lillard’s.
WORKOUT ANALYSIS: Damian Lillard set to average at least 67 ppg, 37 rpg and 93 apg next season
— INSIDE HOOPS - NBA Basketball (@InsideHoops) September 15, 2018
Lillard’s caption with the video pokes fun at the stars who take videotaping themselves too seriously. However, it also points to the pressure now placed on NBA players to show that they are, in fact, working and training even when they aren’t playing on TV.
On July 31, the New York Times published an article, “If an NBA Workout isn’t on Instagram, Does it Even Count?” Writer Scott Cacciola asserts that the ultra-popularization of these workout videos erupted from LeBron James’s affinity for them:
"“James’s influence on the rest of the N.B.A. is impossible to overstate — and it extends all the way to his penchant for grainy, self-styled videos and photos of himself working really hard, almost always without his shirt on, in the hot summer months.”"
When LeBron does something, other NBA players are going to follow. And so that’s how we get annual videos each year of Dwight Howard splashing threes in an empty gym or Stephen Curry dribbling two basketballs in a black-and-white filter.
There’s nothing wrong with showing off what you’ve been working on, or staying engaged with your fans. But some of these videos are becoming mini movies directed by Michael Bay, and the whole culture around them is becoming corny.
Thankfully, this corniness also opens up stars like Damian Lillard to mess around a little bit before the serious business of the regular season starts.