The Pelicans Must Go Down With The Zion Williamson Ship
Try your best to think of an NBA player who averages over 25 points per game on 60% shooting from the field for his career. Got your answer?
If the player that came to mind for you was Zion Williamson, you are correct. If the player that came to mind was anyone else in the history of the league, you are wrong. The New Orleans Pelicans forward is one of a kind.
It is often lost on people that the world experienced a Wemby-mania before Wemby-mania just five short years ago, only in the form of a 6 foot, 6-inch freak of nature with guard-like handles, an Air Jordan-like vertical leap, Shaquille O-Neal-like strength and power, Kyrie-esque touch around the basket and one of the quickest second jumps we've ever seen as opposed to the 7 foot, 5-inch, LeBron James-branded "alien" who now lives both in San Antonio and across everyone's social media feed.
In my illustrious, storied career as an avid enjoyer of the National Basketball Association (beginning at nine years old following my move to New Orleans from my Scottish homeland in 2014), nothing has come close to the hype I felt and experienced around me as I watched the 2018/19 Duke Blue Devils. That team dominated every aspect - I nearly said of my life, but let's not go too crazy - of the American sporting world at that time. The eye-capturing March Madness matchup with Tacko Fall's UCF was electric. The team's chemistry and personality made for a number of memorable moments both on and off the floor.
But what made for all the clicks? What truly caught the world's attention about that Duke team? It wasn't a bunch of Drew Timmes and Luke Mayes (with all due respect to those college ball icons) running around with all the fundamentals and 'invaluable grit' college basketball has to offer. No.
It was Zion Williamson; terrorizing each and every opponent (and rim) he faced with such barbarity and ruthlessness, combined with the elegance, aura, and poetic fashion with which he went about such madness that made for an amalgamation of abilities the likes of which we'd never seen before. The Ball brothers of Chino Hills certainly caught America's attention in a similar way, but their on-court product - the erratic and severely untraditional offense that would make Gregg Popovich cry real tears - can take less credit for their popularity than the Big Baller Brand, their father Lavar, and their Khardashian-like TV show can. For Zion, meanwhile, it was purely his basketball that had the world's eyes on him.
I'll never forget telling my dad about this Zion guy after he had committed to Duke. A man as familiar with social media as the Amish, my dad had not seen any high school footage of this Godzilla in basketball form. All he knew was his name, and that he was off to play for Duke. Shortly after, while in a restaurant in Louis Armstrong International Airport before leaving for a work trip, he saw an early season game on the TV between Duke and Clemson in which a Duke player wearing #1 had a one-on-zero fastbreak. He proceeded to effortlessly 360-windmill dunk the ball as if the rim was 6 feet high and he was on a trampoline. Ah, as he tells me now, Sam was on about that guy.
This is not supposed to be a chronological story of my entire experience with this phenomenon, so I'll jump ahead a bit now. But you get the point. The Zion Williamson hype was real. He was the biggest college basketball star since Lew Alcindor in the 1960s. Hence, my Pelicans winning the 2019 draft lottery on 6% odds and being given the opportunity to draft him remains the highlight of my decade of NBA fandom. You get the point.
Despite what you probably hear everywhere - and sadly not just from the national media but from some of the local beat writers who seem to think it is their job to make Zion request a trade (it is not, buddy. Tell me who is getting re-evaluated in two weeks and stay quiet. Stop letting your anti-Zion agendas shine through in every article you write which consequently infiltrates the entire city's thought process about the guy) - Zion Williamson has not underachieved in the early years of his NBA career.
2x All-Star starter. Historically efficient (like, best ever). 25 points a night. The overarching team success is where he's fallen short, but let's account for context, shall we?
The roster was bad for the first 2 years of his career. Real bad. The numbers back that up, the eye test backs that up, common sense backs that up. Despite Zion's historically impressive stats for the first two years of a player's career, Alvin Gentry and Stan van Gundy's Pelicans teams did not play winning basketball. Look at Victor Wembanyama, Cade Cunningham, and Paolo Banchero. Lack of team success has not - and rightfully so - influenced anyone's analysis of the last three first-overall picks.
Year 3. Enter coach Willie Green. Enter Jonas Valanciunas. Enter Herb Jones. Enter Jose Alvarado. Enter Trey Murphy. Enter CJ McCollum. Now exit Zion. His lingering foot injury kept him out of action for the whole season. Nevertheless, the Pelicans made strides as a unit - thanks to the fantastic drafting and deadline work by the front office - and took the 64-win Suns to six games in the first round despite Williamson's absence.
Year 4. Enter another stud draft pick in Dyson Daniels. Trey Murphy and Herb Jones officially broke out as two of the best young prototypical NBA wings. The Pelicans roster established itself as legit. Zion was back and motivated. The Pelicans sat ATOP THE WESTERN CONFERENCE (!!!!!) in December. Brandon Ingram missed a majority of the first half of the season with a toe injury, and it just didn't matter. By Christmas, Zion was up to 30 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists a night. The MVP discussion was within reach. Until a hamstring tear and eventual aggravation ended his season against Philadelphia on January 2nd. The team capitulated, crashing out of the Play-In tournament to a young Oklahoma City squad.
Now we sit early in year 5 of the Zion era. The team is comfortably over .500 in games he has played this season; missing him in (and losing) a handful of back-to-backs in which he has sat out. On November 29th, he posted 33 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists on an absurdly low 12 shots. As it has been throughout his professional stint, the conversation remained focused on how the organization could keep Williamson on the floor for the entire season. The team is very good when he plays, he just needs to play more. This is nothing new.
But the conversation has turned recently into severe criticism of his on-floor product. National figures like Stephen A Smith and Charles Barkley watched the Pelicans for likely the first time this campaign in their In-Season tournament game against the Los Angeles Lakers - an embarrassment that ended in the fourth-worst loss in franchise history - and have since come out with severe, personal, and brash comments surrounding Zion's physical appearance and overall effort.
Williamson has since posted another supremely efficient 36 points in his very next game against the league's best defensive unit in the Minnesota Timberwolves, but national attention has obviously moved on since the tournament's end and hence the discourse outside of New Orleans circles remains strangely focused on an alternate reality in which Zion is something far worse than he really is. This emphasizes how dangerous it is for the likes of Stephen A Smith to bully Williamson in severely unfair ways on a national stage. It is so fascinating that reporting can still be this poor in this day and age. Zion Williamson is exactly as advertised on the court - he has just dealt with injury issues. Yet, he is spoken about like he has been a disappointment. The injuries are disappointing, but not the product. The brilliance of Williamson has for some reason failed to stop him from being one of the least discussed top NBA talents in recent league history.
There are a number of problems with this, none more bizarre to me than its entirely fallacious nature. Calling him fat is just lazy reporting. Especially coming from Charles Barkley. And cry me a river about his lack of defensive effort, unless we begin to give media darling Luka Doncic the same treatment. Is the national media so upset that Zion didn't land in one of their precious big markets that they feel the need to attack everything about him and his team right now? (please never forget Kendrick Perkins calling for the Pelicans to relocate). I feel like I can stop right here because the answer is yes. Big market bias is very real in this league.
There is a clear-as-day agenda in the national media against Zion, and there has been since day one. With the exception of some weird, nonsensical sections of the fanbase, however, New Orleans is fully behind their All-Star forward. Yes, the combination of the work of figures on platforms like ESPN and certain local writers has caused anti-Zion rhetoric to seep into some Pelicans' fans' minds, but most of the city has its head screwed on.
And we are pro-Zion not only for how great his career has been when healthy but for various reasons. This city is ride or die, for one. Everyone knows (and everyone says) that when you love the city, it will love you back tenfold.
Zion is also active in the community and expresses his commitment to and love for the Crescent City on countless occasions. And lastly - a fact that I cannot express with words how strongly I wish to emphasize - most people understand that talents like Zion Williamson are once in a lifetime for a market as small as ours. We are not New York. We are not Los Angeles. Megastar free agents do not sign here. If you get your hands on a talent like this, the fate of your franchise must fall into his hands.
Which brings me to what would be my thesis if this were for an English class: the New Orleans Pelicans must go down with the Zion Williamson ship. And it is a ship that I believe has far less chance of sinking than it does of floating all the way to an NBA championship, but regardless, my franchise has to let the Zion project run its course for the entirety of his career. No matter where that takes us, I would never forgive this team if it decides to trade him. Even if we never win another playoff series in the next decade, I can at least rest knowing that we gave the Williamson-led Pelicans every chance they deserved. And despite the missed time due to injury, his career so far has still given me enough to wholeheartedly believe this.
Particularly since the Willie Green hire, this Pelicans unit performs at the level of a contender when Zion Williamson is on the floor. In the history of the franchise under the Pelican name, the team has NEVER contended. It is really that simple.
If Zion has one fully healthy season over the next ten, you still have to stay with him. Because that one season guarantees championship contention for a team that cannot contend without him. Again, this team has a first-round ceiling without him. They are a one seed with him.
Those who call for a trade are acting spoiled in a way that they don't realize. The return - in a trade that should never happen - would be draft capital and a few young pieces to throw around Brandon Ingram. We've already seen young, talented guys around #14 in a playoff setting. It can only take you so far. The excellent drafting can only take you so far. Elite team chemistry can only take you so far. Zion Williamson elevates you to that next level.
No matter how frustrating the injuries may be, no matter how many times you turn on the TV and see borderline verbal abuse levelled at him, no matter how much losing will continue to happen in his absence, you have to hold out for a healthy Zion Williamson product. In the stints in which we've seen it, New Orleans is an elite basketball club.
He is one of the most efficient players in the history of the league. He is the only player to ever be this efficient at this volume. In a sport that is becoming increasingly focused on math, Zion passes every test with flying colours.
He is an upper-echelon superstar. The closest comparison in franchise history is - obviously - Anthony Davis. Yet Zion's front office has done a far superior job to the people in charge during Davis' time in constructing a well-rounded, strong roster from top to bottom. This allows Zion to carry this team as far as he wants it to go in ways that AD was never able to. And he can carry it to places that the franchise has never been before him, and will likely not go for a good while after him.
Stephen A Smith gets a lot of things wrong. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.
"When Zion Williamson is healthy, the New Orleans Pelicans can get to the NBA Finals."