Boston Celtics

Celtics' Jared Sullinger needed intervention to lose weight and improve conditioning

Published Sep. 28, 2015 11:30 a.m. ET

foxsports

The Boston Celtics and Jared Sullinger haven't seen eye to eye when it comes to Sullinger's weight issue over the past few seasons.

But heading into his fourth NBA season, off a year where he suffered yet another serious injury that might've been avoidable if he was in better shape, Sullinger looks as healthy and svelte as ever before.

How did we get here? Well, according to the Boston Herald's Chris Mason, Sullinger had an intervention:

This is a little drastic and somewhat alarming. Why did Sullinger need friends and family to tell him he's out of shape after Celtics President Danny Ainge already mentioned it multiple times in the press?

But sometimes the journey is less important than the destination. Sullinger is finally in shape, and that's what really matters.

(h/t: Boston Herald)

When the Celtics forward arrived at his apartment later that afternoon, he was greeted by his agent, his family, and a man he’d never met, John Lucas II. It was an intervention, but an unconventional one. It was regarding his fitness. Sullinger’s weight has been a talking point since the Celtics drafted him three years ago, and it came to a head last season when he reportedly tipped the scales at 300 pounds. The C’s want to see their 6-foot-9 forward around 260. For Sullinger to stay in green, something had to change. His family and Lucas saw that. “(Lucas) personally came down and he told me, ‘You’ve got all the talent in the world, but you’ve forgotten what working hard is,’ ” Sullinger said yesterday. “For somebody to come all the way from Houston to Colombus, Ohio, to stop whatever he was doing, he was there for me, and that’s what made me go and work out for John.”