Why officiating Zion is so hard

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It’s different with Williamson, who doesn’t plant his flag on the block like O’Neal did. Instead, often moonlighting as a point guard, he’ll either drive the ball from the perimeter or catch a pass 15 feet out and then rumble in from there. By the time he reaches the basket, more than one defender will in all likelihood have had a chance to slow him down, complicating what officials have to deal with before a point of contact is made.

That uncanny combination of size and speed impacts the anticipatory decisions officials normally make. The three basic elements of refereeing are location adjustment, position adjustment and vision adjustment. There’s a lead official (somewhere along the baseline, ideally on the strong side), a slot official (free throw extended, near the sideline), and a trailer. Possessions involving Zion tweak their individual responsibilities a bit and force all three to focus on spots they otherwise don’t.

“When [the Pelicans] swing it back to the weak side, and Zion puts it down going to the basket, the lead doesn't have a chance to get there,” Vaden says. “And the slot is basically trying to referee that play by himself—with help, but there's a lot more pressure on [them] that way.”

In these spots, the lead official often has no choice but to observe from the opposite side of the lane, which isn’t preferable. Even still, referees don’t stare at Williamson so much as they focus on different defenders who appear on his path to the rim.

...“When he dunks the ball, you or I can reach out and hit him as hard as we want to, he's not even gonna feel it. He's going to be able to finish with power. And from a referee standpoint, they're trying to get their eyes to the point of contact, but he goes through it so powerful that you can't tell if he's hit or not,” Vaden says. “Most of the time, you're not gonna see it until you go to replay or go to the film session later and look at it in slow motion to see if there is actually contact or not.”

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