Kovach estimates that an NBA player, depending on his work ethic, his size, his body fat and percentage of musculature, burns anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 calories in a day. The average man, on the other hand, burns 2,000 to 2,500. Most people gain their extra 30 or 40 pounds slowly, from the ages of 25 to 65, but for Jordan and Barkley, the process was condensed. And being athletes, they have no reference or comparison for how to deal with it. The real issue here, of course, is retirement.
Retirement is a complex passage for anyone, fraught with self-doubt and even depression.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once described his own retirement. And then you realize, no, all those years of playing, that was the other side of the moon. This is Earth. Compounding the problem is that the job of athlete is a heightened sensory experience. The nervous system, in addition to a furnace-like burning of 6,000 calories a day, is electrified by adrenaline on a regular basis.