The Cameroonian All-Star center could be the fire that fuels a knockout season from young Brooklyn Nets big man, Jarrett Allen.
With Brooklyn Nets media day juuust in the rearview window, thousands and thousands of words have been spilled onto the internets. Nets center Jarrett Allen is ready to take another step forward this season and he’s using last year’s playoffs as motivation.
During the playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, All-Star center Joel Embiid certainly had his way with the 21-year-old man in the middle. Through four games, Embiid scored on 22 of his 42 total shots when defended by Allen and most-famously laid an elbow for the ages into Allen’s temple.
When asked about this matchup, Allen mentioned Embiid’s playoff performance as major ammo when preparing for this season:
“It fueled me pretty well. We all know, the obvious thing that was going around, all over the world, was that I was not strong enough,” Allen told Chris Milholen of the Nets Wire. “That is one thing I really wanted to change in the offseason.”
Allen’s workout plan was simple. The third-year center committed to “lifting weights everyday, going with the nutritionist, talking with the strength coach, and I pulled everybody together for a meeting in the beginning of the summer just to talk about the goals we need to do. I ended up eating like seven meals a day, something crazy like that just to get on as much as I can.”
With Philly now retooled with two troublesome big men (Embiid and Al Horford), it’s crucial for Allen to take that next step. Both Sean Marks and Kenny Atkinson have pointed to the Texas product as one of the young players who could progress next season. Let’s see if that comes to fruition.
