Listen to the full show at Jim Rome's Daily Jungle
Jim Rome: Lee Jenkins talking all things NBA, including this. Lee, before you go, you had a great piece I thought about sleep and what NBA players do to get it. First of all how big of a problem is sleep in the NBA? What kind of hours are these guys keeping, especially when they’re on the road?
Lee Jenkins: Oh yeah I mean it’s huge. It’s huge I think in all sports but probably most in the NHL and the NBA just because you have the 41 row of games, you’ve got these charters landing at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. And young teams, they can do these shoot arounds really early. So yeah it’s a huge factor and you have guys who are wired, wired from competition, just wired naturally.
I’ve had guys tell me – I mean Rajon Rando once told me he watched the replay of every Celtics game at 2:00 in the morning and then called Garnett at 4:00 and review it over again. Kobe never slept. Blake Griffin was thinking of going to the UCLA sleep study, like to sleep in the building to kind of get his sleep analyzed.
Some of these guys are trying this. I wrote about this new drink. It’s called Som and some guys are trying this. A couple Nuggets. Especially Trey Lyles has had success with it. It’s a certified really natural drink that doesn’t leave you groggy in the morning. I feel like I’m doing an infomercial right now kind of but it’s something that some players are looking for because clearly they’re desperate. And I think that some of these guys are just always exhausted. I think that’s how it goes for a lot of professional athletes.
But there is a morning culture in the NBA. There’s a late night culture with them because of these morning shoot arounds these guys end up groggy a lot.
Jim Rome: We’re talking to Lee Jenkins.