The Real-Life Diet of CJ McCollum, Who Is No Longer Sneaking Food from the Media Room 

Since his arrival to the New Orleans Pelicans last season, CJ McCollum has provided stability, veteran leadership, and a consistent scoring threat to a team that is postseason bound—the Pels just clinched a spot in the play-in tournament and may avoid it altogether. Away from the floor, he serves as the president of the National Basketball Players Association, gives his insight on NBA news on ESPN’s The CJ McCollum show, and owns his own vineyard. 

McCollum spoke with GQ on how approach to the offseason has changed throughout his career, how an injury during his rookie year altered his approach to dieting, and a very detailed breakdown of his game day preparation. 

GQ: How do you approach your offseason now?

CJ McCollum: I used to go a full week of no basketball when I was younger, mainly because I wasn’t playing as much. My load wasn’t heavy during the season, and I was gearing up for Summer League. After about three or four years as a starter in the league, your body starts to shift a little bit. Your load is heavier, and you go through more wear and tear on the body. Now, I do 21 days of no basketball. I have a son now, so it’s spending time with him and my family, handling business off of the court and really just allowing my body to recover. With the inflammation and the stress levels from the season, I kind of let that recover naturally and then I begin to do some body work in terms of soft tissue and massages. I’ll start to do some core and stability work just to kind of build my body back up slowly.

That’s worked best for me and on the 21st day, I’ll begin to shoot and begin to slowly introduce basketball again. I’ve found that three weeks to allow my body to reset has been helpful for me. I don’t run up and down the court and there’s no pounding. Everything I do is low impact or no impact. 

What year would you say you found your routine in terms of having a good diet and routine?

I would say my third year in the league. My first year, I broke my foot on the last day of training camp. So I missed a lot time and had time to reevaluate my career, where I wanted it to go, and how I would become a routine-based person. I’ve always had structure and a schedule but in terms of my preparation, I kind of got away with eating what I wanted most of my career. Once you have an injury, you have to be more cognizant of your weight, what’s causing inflammation, things that are better for the body, and what times you should be eating. I think that is when I tailored my diet and narrowed my focus to eating healthier, figuring out what times are best to eat, what times I should be eating before games, and what times I should be going to sleep. 

That structure helped propel me from a guy who wasn’t really in the rotation to a starter. That injury kind of helped reshape my mindset on diet. We all know it’s important, but you go through some drastic changes in your body and lifestyle with the travel in the NBA. I realized this travel is causing inflammation, causing fatigue, and I have to kind of structure my life and diet better so that I have a little more energy and advantage over some of my peers. 

Over the course of your career, how have you seen the shift in teams being more active in the nutrition of the players? 

Before games, we used to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Most of the arenas had that, fruit, and popcorn. As a younger guy I didn’t like spending money, so that’s what I would have. We would actually go into the media room because they always had food. We would go and get some of their food and go back and eat it before the game. As my career progressed, teams begin to cater meals—whether that was at the hotel or arena. Now, just about every team caters food at the arena. You’ll have breakfast provided, a post-shootaround meal provided by the team, especially on the road. Than you’ll have a pregame meal that’s catered at the arena and a postgame meal that you’ll have immediately after. 

I think most teams have a chef and a team nutritionist. Some teams have multiple chefs, and they cater meals consistently around each player’s needs and wants so they can get maximum performance. So, I’ll say there’s a huge change and shift in the importance of diet from when I first got into the league 10 years ago until now. 

What does a typical breakfast, lunch, and dinner consist of?

I go three eggs with peppers, onions, and some lettuce or some form of grain. Either I’m eating it as a sandwich with some salmon, or I’m having it on the side with some hash browns and turkey sausage. For lunch—I’m fortunate to have a chef to prepare my meals—it’s something generally on the lighter side. It’ll be the chef’s choice and sometimes it’s Mediterranean themed. Sometimes its salad-based or seafood-based. For dinner, it’s a combination of things. Sometimes, it’s seafood as the protein, so I can get those Omega 3’s and fatty acids. A starch and something green. I generally have a smoothie every day and I’ll have a dairy-free acai bowl at some point of the day. I eat probably every three hours and I drink a lot of water. Tea in the morning and at night. That’s been helpful for me and part of my therapeutic daily recovery. 

Are there foods you try and avoid during the season?

Based on food sensitivity tests, I avoid dairy for the most part during the season because it causes inflammation in my body. I do like ranch, so I’ll have that on occasions. I try to avoid fried foods. I’m like a 90/10 guy—90 percent clean and 10 percent whatever I want. The whatever I want is French Fries and a burger every now and then. Every couple of months or on a holiday, I’ll have some fried chicken and soul food. I try and stay away from foods that are linked to or well known to be associated with increased inflammation and fatigue for me and my body. Other than that, I don’t drink pop. Obviously, I’ll try to avoid liquor. As a person in the wine business, I have wine on occasions. For the most part, my liquids water, electrolytes, lemonade and orange juice on occasions, and tea.

What’s a cheat day look like during the season?

I’ll go to a restaurant here in New Orleans. My wife and I do that about once a week. So, I’ll pick a restaurant where I can get gumbo, crawfish, shrimp étouffée, oysters and go through the gauntlet of all the things New Orleans is known for. This is also a good place to have fried catfish, fried chicken, ribs, brisket, baked mac and cheese, coleslaw, baked beans, and candy yams. 

You purchased a vineyard a couple of years ago. What’s the greatest part about owning that type  of land?

I think the coolest part is the legacy that can be left behind. Land acquisition is important and real estate is a way in which you can create generational wealth. The storytelling aspect of growing up, learning about wine, being taught the importance of community, love, and storytelling. To be able to walk a property that you purchased and are continuing to build out is a blessing in itself. 

Your wife introduced you to wine while you were in college. How much has your palate changed since that time?

My palate has changed a lot since that first time. From not knowing anything about it to learning and tasting wines in different regions—I think I’ve grown and matured more in this space with sitting down with wine masters, somms, and wine makers to better understand the wines to making the wines. I think the fascinating part of it is that no matter how much you study, you’ll never truly know everything about it. Two grapes can grow on the same vine, and one will have a different amount of sunlight, different amount of precipitation and they’ll both be different. I think my wife enjoys the science behind it as someone who is a doctor and currently a dentist. The cool part about wine is the storytelling aspect. Being able to share stories and break bread with loved ones. 

Being able to go through the process that we’ve gone through of not knowing anything about wine to learning about it, having our own property and our own wine—I think it’s been a pretty cool journey, a cool story, and I’m just looking forward to continue to build memories and continue to make this space more inclusive to where people feel more comfortable—not just ordering wine, but visiting wineries and going through the process of enjoying the grapes and everything that comes with it. 

What makes a high-quality wine in your opinion?

I think quality is relative to a few things—how the wine is prepared, how long it’s aging. Price point doesn’t necessarily dictate quality. There are some expensive wines out there, in my opinion, that don’t taste as great and there are some wines out there that aren’t very expensive that taste great. It’s a matter of quality being what your palate desires. It’s kind of like food. There are certain foods that I might like, and think are quality that you may dislike. It doesn’t mean the food isn’t good. It’s just not what you enjoy. It’s not one size fits all. It’s certain wines that people might not like because their palate doesn’t gravitate towards it. I prefer a smoother wine. It could be red or white, higher acidity. Generally speaking, I like my pinot’s to be aged four to seven years. I think location matters, how early the grapes are picked matters—there’s a lot of stuff that determines the outcome of the grape in whether it’s desirable in my eyes. 

Can you walk me through your pregame routine? 

At home, I’m probably up at around 8:30 and go through the normal routine. I’ll play with my son and I’ll eat breakfast. It’s about two to three eggs, peppers, onions, lettuce, salmon, a little but of ketchup and mayonnaise mixed together on a sandwich. I’ll have my tea with lemon and honey and about 32 ounces of water. I’ll get to the facility and get on the [training] table. I go through a little pause and stretch routine, get my body checked out, maybe get some soft tissue work if I need it. I do paraffin wax for my hands for 10 minutes. I’ve had some hand injuries this season, so I try to make sure I’m taking care of my hands. It also keeps them soft and allows me to feel more comfortable when I’m dribbling, passing, and shooting the ball. 

I go through a shooting routine where I get shots up where I’m going to get them at. It’s a lot of free throws, floaters and touches around the basket. Pick and roll three’s, catch-and-shoot three’s. I’ll hit the steam room for 15-20 minutes, shower, and get right into the cryo for three minutes. I’ll go home and if my son isn’t sleeping, I’ll spend time with him. I’ll eat lunch and that’s typically something like a salad, a small bison burger with potatoes. I’ll have a mixed berry smoothie with some other stuff in there for inflammation, joint stability and collagen. I get in the bed and put my Normatec on, meditate, watch film, and take a nap. I get up and eat again. It’s usually some pasta, maybe a salad with some chicken or shrimp. I’ll head to the arena, do some soft tissue work on the table or whatever I need for my body to get ready. I’ll foam roll, stretch, and a routine of correctives for my body. I’ll do my shooting time and after that, go back to the weight room to make sure everything is moving how it’s supposed to. I’ll do some core and stability work. I’ll get in the hot tub for a little bit to warm the body up. I get taped, go to chapel with 60 on the clock, read some bible verses, text my wife, and then it’s showtime. 

What does the postgame routine consist of?

I get lifts in sometimes and I check in again on the table to get stretched. I go through my recovery process. I ice both feet and knees or I’ll get into the ice tub.