Kevin Love really believes in eating what grows, and he'll count every serving.

"Not 10 almonds, not 18, 14." Trainer Lobo McClanghorn said of his most dedicated client, "How much Kevin says is how much. If the plan is to eat every 2 hours, he'll wake up during the day to eat and go to sleep."

Leaf changed his diet almost completely, something his teammates often took to social media to make fun of.Starting in 2012, Leaf was basically a vegetarian, with salmon and grilled chicken the staples of choice, and he ate five or six meals a day.When Leaf joined the Cavaliers in 2014, he hired a full-time chef to prepare egg whites, beet juice, and Wheaties laced with almond butter and protein powder for him.

The team breakfast before Game 2 of the Finals saw Cavaliers players wolf down pancakes, waffles and bacon, with the sole exception of Love.

"Kevin took two bran muffins, a banana and skim milk," said Cavaliers forward Richard Jefferson, "and he ate like an 80-year-old woman trying to stay in shape."

Leaf often brings his own food -- kale salad and grilled chicken -- on the plane instead of following his teammates after the game and eating those high-calorie carbs. Lefebvre said teammates often joke about it.

"When I come in with the grocery bags, they look at me with a weird look on their faces," Lefebvre said, "and it's not nice to have a group of teammates like that who are always making fun of you."

But Love knows he has to eat like that. Especially since the Cavaliers are playing their 101st game of the season. Many people misunderstand that NBA players can eat their favorite foods without restraint during the long, rigorous regular season and playoffs. But all the sweating and training doesn't mean they can satisfy their cravings.

NBA players actually count calories, just like the rest of us. They crave late-night snacks, booze, margaritas or cold beer. When they want a gourmet meal to de-stress, it doesn't matter if it's home-made meatballs or Leaf's mom's favorite, spaghetti with chicken alfredo.

"People must think athletes can eat their favorite foods with impunity because they all run out of calories," said Dr. Mike Russell, a nutritionist who has worked with many professional athletes, including Lakers center Roy Hibbert. "Even in management, some people have this idea. I'm surprised to see a lot of NBA players buying chicken fingers at the arena before the game and going to Subway late at night after the game. They're just like regular people."

But players are now beginning to embrace the idea that proper nutritional intake is good for the body. Draymond Green, for example, fell to the 35th overall pick in 2012 in part because of his below-average body fat content, bounce and fitness. But after his rookie season, Green dropped 20 pounds. He ditched the "bad carbs." Including his favorite tacos from Vargas & Sons Tortillas in Saginaw, Michigan. Green says his old knee pain has slowed down after the weight loss, and his stamina and mental focus have improved.

Even the incredibly talented LeBron James has made changes to his diet. he also caused awe when he posted a photo of his slimmed-down body on social media in 2014. At the time he said it was the effect of a low-carb diet.

Warriors center Andrew Bogut stopped consuming sugar after winning the championship last year and lost 22 pounds as a result. He said a documentary called "Sugar is the New Fat" spurred him on, and afterward he began to abstain from sugar and train as usual. Bogut said he used to make fun of people who read ingredient labels.

"Now," he said, "I look too."

Charles Barkley said there's an ironclad rule in the NBA: "If you're fat or out of shape, you can't support your family by playing."

Probably the only player in history to gain weight on purpose to keep himself from being drafted, Barkley graduated from Auburn University in 1984 with the nickname "Rebounding Ball," and weighed in as a 76er on a visit. He weighed in at 292 pounds when he visited the 76ers. 76ers owner Harold Katz, who had the No. 5 overall pick, liked Barkley and committed to him. But Cutts wanted Barkley to be slimmer.

"Harold said, 'Let's see how hard you work,' " Barkley recalled, adding, "2 days before the draft, you come to us and weigh in, and I'm hoping to get down to 284 pounds. "

Barkley went to Houston and put his head down every day, stopped eating sugar, drinking alcohol and consuming a lot of fruits and vegetables, and he got down to 280 pounds. But a few days before the draft, Barkley's agent, Lance Lachenique, informed him that the 76ers were over the salary cap and could only pay him $75,000 a year (there was no uniform rookie contract). Barkley panicked; he didn't want to take a loss on his first NBA contract.

"I decided I wasn't going to let the 76ers pick me," he said.

For the next 48 hours, according to Barkley, he and Lachenique embarked on a binge-drinking program. A super-deluxe breakfast: two Bo pancakes, two eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and bread. Plus, Buckley orders a bunch of large pancakes. Throughout the afternoon, Buckley keeps drinking sodas and milkshakes and indulging in lobster rolls. For dinner he orders two more T-bone steaks.

"We do it all over again the next day," Buckley says.

By the time he returned to the 76ers' practice facility, his weight shot up to 301 pounds. "Cutts busted on me," Barkley said, "and he was pissed off, and nobody knew about the weight gain program, but I thought, 'It worked.'"

On draft day, a smug Barkley sat back and waited to see which unfortunate player would be selected by the 76ers. David Stern read, "With the fifth pick in the 1984 draft, the 76ers select ...... Charles Barkley!"

"I sat there in fucking shock," Barkley said, "and I couldn't believe it, and I told my agent, ''Well, now I'm fat and poor."''

Good thing the 76ers cleared the salary cap, they gave Barkley $2 million for four years. Barkley found a lifelong mentor in Philadelphia in Moses Malone, who told him it was impossible to be fat and lazy in the NBA. The embittered Barkley dropped to 255 pounds and was named an All-Star in two years, his first in 11 straight years.

Former Suns center Oliver Miller's favorite pizza.

Danny Angel, a teammate of Miller's during his Suns days, said he weighed 375 pounds at his heaviest. Miller ate so much that the Sun had to take drastic measures and send him to the hospital for fluids.

"But they found out he ordered Delta Pizza at the hospital," Angle said, "and they had to put security guards outside the room."

Buckley, who also played with Miller, "would see pizza boxes piled up outside his room when we played away games," Buckley said, "and I couldn't figure out why people couldn't keep their mouths shut when they were making so much money. I think it's crazy."

Angie, now the Celtics' president of basketball operations, has also encountered players with Miller's problems: "Big Baby" Glen Davis, whose contract with the Celtics has a weight clause, and Jared Sullinger. Former Georgetown inside Mike Switney, who Angle believes has the skills of a 10-year NBA veteran.

"First of all, I don't think any fat guy wants to be overweight," Angle said, "and they want good size, too, and most of them put in varying degrees of effort. A lot of big guys like Oliver and Big Baby are the ones who play well even when they're overweight. That's part of the problem, they can be efficient too, but they can't tap into all their potential. In the end, it will hurt you."

But it's not as simple as losing weight. Bodies get lighter and many times they don't play their best.

Roy Hibbert, for example, was asked by former Pacers head coach Jim O'Brien to lose 30 pounds and adapt to the more up-tempo Chippendales. O'Brien thought a leaner Hibbert could play better (and he did). But when Frank Vogel took over, he told Hibbert to put on more weight because Vogel liked the confrontational, tough-guy style.

At the time, Hibbert also used to order those high-fat hotel meals late at night. Russell took over and advised Hibbert to add what nutritionists call "net weight. Rossell's principles revolved around the question: Can you eat the same thing in two hours? If you can't, Rosell says, then you're overweight.

"The hardest thing is not being able to control your own mouth," Hebert says now, "so I leave it all to others."

Today, Russell arranges all of Hibbert's meals and delivers them to the team's check-in hotel when he plays away games. Occasionally, Russell lets Hibbert indulge. For example, he invented a healthy cheese hot dog filled with chicken, 3 grams of fat and 8 grams of protein, stirred beef, low-fat cheese and a high-fiber raw wheat bun. Rosell also devised a healthy lobster macaroni and cheese

Even the best nutritionists can't have eyes only for health.

"There's no such thing as a low-calorie red velvet cake," says Rosell.

Like the average person, NBA veterans run into the same problem: the older they get, the more they have to watch what they eat.

Gone are the good old days when Jefferson ate steak three nights a week on the road in his youth. He says he can't have Sterling Crisps (a Pepsi fried food) in the house, either. "I'll be 36 in a couple of weeks," Jefferson said, "and can't afford that stuff."

Bryan Shaw was a Celtics rookie in 1988, when the pregame meal consisted of Big Macs, french fries and soda, and in 2014, Shaw, then the Nuggets' head coach, was surprised to see pizza and grilled-cheese chili con carne in the locker room before a game. He blamed the greasy food for slowing down the team's opening performance. Shaw threw that food in the trash and replaced them with chicken and salad.

McClanaghan said his client, Derrick Rose, began to like fast food, too. "Derek's pre-game favorite was Burger King, and the first two years he wouldn't even look at a salad, but now that he's older, he's very receptive."

Shawn Wendell, the Pacers' head strength-and-fitness coach, said breaking those habits and getting players to take a good look at their on-court performance is a byproduct of their hucksterism.

"I have this conversation with our players all the time: 'I ate pizza before the game, I got 25 points, tell me what difference eating salmon and broccoli would make?'" Wendell said, "You try to explain to them that the game is not the same physicality or vigor. Or pizza might not affect the stats tonight, but it could be tomorrow."

Even LeBron admitted before Game 3 of the Finals that he has adjusted his eating habits as he gets older. The most recent change was to refuse junk food.

"But it's hard to say no when you're at home with three kids and they're putting junk food in front of you," James said, adding, "Every once in a while I'll take a few bites to please them, but it's really me who's happy."

Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle says he's learned one thing in his 27 years in this league: don't jump to conclusions based on a player's size. Raymond Felton's diet is much stricter than Russell Westbrook's, for example, but you can't even tell from the outside. Two players eat the same food and train at the same intensity, but their bodies and skills may be completely different, as determined by genetics.

Russell said LeBron's "genetic gift" made his so-called "low-carb diet" in 2014 work so quickly and incredibly well.

"They bragged that it was a low-carb diet program, and it wasn't," said Rosell, adding that James was not his client, "His 'low-carb' meals had mango, had chutney, had carbs and sugar. But that's normal, and in nutrition, even the wealthiest and most resourceful people can eat badly."

Genes certainly have an influence in dining, gaining and losing weight. The lure of away games is an even more undeniable challenge. Nightlife is the dreaded health obstacle of the season. Alcohol and nightlife are inextricably linked; it has calories, and players simultaneously and inevitably eat junk food late at night and skip breakfast the next day as a result. Two team general managers interviewed admitted that amateurism is the hardest bad habit for players to break. "We could win five more games if we could get players to stay honest after games," one Western Conference general manager said.

"He eats like a female bodybuilding champion who wants to wear a bikini," Jefferson snickered. As much as Cavaliers players like to poke fun at LeFevour, LeFevour's strict dietary discipline for size has earned their respect.

Leaf weighed more than 270 pounds at UCLA and was out of breath after a few steps on the court. When he first came to the NBA, Leaf was afraid to go to the low post because he worried about not bouncing well enough to get off opponents' shots.

McClanaghan said Lefebvre is much more explosive now and can create space for himself with step-back jumpers and dribbling. That's a direct benefit of greater mental focus and the 30-pound weight loss.

Leaf's ability to last 60 minutes straight during offseason workouts is a far cry from his UCLA and Timberwolf days -- when he had to change out of a T-shirt and shorts every hour because he was sweating too much.

"When he first came to the NBA, he couldn't last until the last minute of a game," McClendahan said, "and now he has that stamina. Kevin put in a lot of work, and he saw it as an investment that's paying off now ($114 million contract)."

Leaf has been counting almonds for five years, and Bogut quit sugar for 11 months. But still craves Cadbury's and Australian Mars chocolate chunks. Green was initially very uncomfortable with the low-carb diet, but it's now part of his daily routine. "It's like being used to eating junk food," he said, "and now being used to eating healthy food."

As for LeBron, chutney or no chutney, low-carb or not, if it helps his game, someone is standing up for the "low-carb" program.