I'm surprised it's allowed
If I had to guess, I would say it's allowed for 2 reasons. First, no one is making fun of her, deriding her, or saying anything with negative connotations. Second, if it's impacting her ability to play at the highest level in the WNBA, then it's an issue and fair game. Shoni Schimmel is a perfect example. She was drafted 8th in 2014. Averaged about 8 PPG her 1st 2 seasons (20 minutes per game and 8 starts), yet she was traded by Atlanta to NY and since then she's averaging about 2 PPG in 5 MPG.
From an article June 10 last year:
But Schimmel, the Dream’s starting point guard, showed up to training camp in May out of shape. And heading into the Dream’s third game, Thursday night against San Antonio at Philips Arena, Schimmel is still working on her conditioning. Schimmel’s poor conditioning affects her play, but her basketball IQ helps her overcome some of those deficiencies, coach Michael Cooper said.
Both Schimmel and Cooper view the experience as a learning lesson.
“The bottom line is she understands the magnitude of being a professional basketball player, a professional athlete now,” Cooper said. “It’s about keeping your body in tip-top shape all year around to where when you come to training camp, training camp shouldn’t be a time for you to get in shape, training camp is a time to take the shape you’re in and take it to another level with your teammates.”
Point is, fitness levels, out of shape, etc are all synonymous for weight issues for players. I can't find articles that point directly to a correlation to her lack of PT in 2016 to her fitness issues, but when she was traded to the Liberty, Atlanta HC cooper said that they needed players who could play with high energy on offense and defense. A PC way of saying she was still out of shape. And in NY, she's basically buried on the bench. Bottom line, she needs to get in shape, or she can kiss her pro career goodbye, at least in the WNBA...
Getting back to KML - she's always moved well to my eyes for a player of her size, and I'm not a good enough evaluator of play to determine if she's in the best shape she can be in, or if better fitness is needed to really succeed at this level. But coming from UCONN, KML knows all about hard work and I bet she does everything in her power to become the best player she can be in every aspect of her game...
She seems to be earning much more PT lately and she's also contributing nicely. Is it because she's in better shape, or for some other reason? Whatever it is, I think we are all thrilled for her!!
