re: Honest Zion talk for Emotional Intelligent Folks

quote:

---

Zion put on display yesterday freakish displays of skill and athleticism, which many prior claimed he had all but permanently lost. And many like TigerAtL, GOP and myself warned we should not dismiss the likelihood that the nature of the season/off season, his problematic circumstance due to those and other factors, the scaled back offensive scheme, preventive conditioning measures, and the defensive learning curve was leading to a false impression of his effort and a false impression of a ceiling crippling drop in his athletic capacity.

As the offense has expanded and evolved for Zion, as he has managed to improve his read and react skills, it would appear that the above explanation seems more and more to be the case, and not the ones claiming some personal effort issues or some permanent and drastic drop in his athletic capacity.

---

If SFP said Zion isn’t, or still can’t be, a freak athlete then I missed it.

It’s really simple, you either think it’s more likely that holds up long term physically today than you did when he left Duke or you don’t.

Everything else is just noise. You aren’t contradicting the argument, you’re just introducing distractions.

quote:

---

It’s not unreasonable to believe we should adjust long term expectations of him based on what we’ve seen from him physically since entering the NBA, specifically considering the directional trend since summer league/preseason last year.

Bringing up advanced stats of guys like Curry or Kobe is more of a deflection than it is a counter argument to that point.

---

Again, we’ve treaded this ground.

One side has claimed Zion has had a career altering permanent loss of athleticism and/or a poor work ethic/output that we must lower our expectations as a result(of which some people simply had absurdly out of whack expectations anyways, which is also its own thing), going so far as to declare him no longer having the ceiling of best player in his draft. Another side has countered that what people seem to point to as evidence to that is either highly disputable(his work ethic, which by all accounts is extraordinary except for maybe his diet, which is a correctable variable) or has a number of realistic counters(the points I listed above about misremembering the early careers of many greats, assuming lack of effort or hustle based on certain struggles or a lack of certain types of plays being made, that in reality it is actually not).

That until you can actually rule out those other explanations, all but the most absurd expectations(that shouldn’t have been the expectation anyways), are still very much on the table because you just can’t write someone’s career based on such incomplete knowledge and 35 games into their career under such unusual and difficult circumstances

quote:

---

It’s really simple, you either think it’s more likely that holds up long term physically today than you did when he left Duke or you don’t.

---

That was never the argument.

In fact the argument continues to shift so much it isn’t clear there was a coherent logic besides defending the emotional position that Zion isn’t the player he thought he was. SFP has waffled from claiming a permanent reduction in athleticism based on not replicating specific highlights from Duke(which as mentioned can have multiple explanations that aren’t permanent reductions to athleticism), to SVG simply smothering him, to work ethic issues, to his statistical output signaling a permanent drop in his ceiling, to it being just a mental thing, to wanting to pencil him in as having regressed 11 games in to a weird season under weird circumstances.

Which if the explanation is any number of those, it doesn’t at all signal a permanent reduction unless, like him, you had insane Lebron like expectations for a player that coming into the league already was projected to not have that level of early output or that type of iron man type staying power...Which basically no player should have that expectation ever. Which as others have noted, despite all the extenuating circumstances Zion has uniquely had to endure his first two seasons, he is still on a historical all time great trajectory. Which simply makes a thread like this, going on this long, patently absurd.

quote:

---

That was never the argument.

---

Ok, I saw multiple posts where it was clear to me that this is what SFP was trying to convey.

It’s all I’m trying to convey.

quote:

---

People are finding it easier to question Zion’s ability to maintain his athleticism today than they did coming into the NBA.

---

I amn't one of those people.
He was using his athleticism way too much in Duke to make it last in nba...

He's lost some of his athleticism since his meniscus injury , that's a fact ofc.

quote:

---

Yes or no, do you think it’s more likely that Zion holds up long term physically based on what you’ve seen since he entered the NBA than you did when he left Duke?

---

I’d say considering my expectations were that he has some extraordinary physical traits but under developed skillsets, that it could lead to a career that is slower to develop than many greats(though due to those traits make him a very good offensive player in a secondary or complimentary role but with some obvious holes ala early career AD, so his final form will take time on both sides of the ball) that could eventually burn very bright if his skillset development goes right, including amongst the greats, but due to those traits risks declining faster than some. So yes, I’d say my expectations are still about where they were.

One of my arguments his rookie season was that if we really wanted to compete now(which I wasn’t exactly on board with but simply entertaining that approach), we would be wise to trade for someone like Beal if available, because you could put Beal and BI as your alphas for a few seasons as Zion develops his game out and into his potential. Many people shot back at me saying that Zion would be ready much sooner, that doing so is out of line with what he would be very quickly, I said I think it’s a multi seasons process and that Zion would likely be that player more around 23-24 than 20-21 like many wanted to demand(assuming he doesn’t hit any snags like his jumper). That it would be more of an AD development curve than Lebron.

Then what are you defending?

You came in here to defend SFP’s honor by claiming he was making one argument but as it continues to be pointed out to you, he was weaving in and out of several arguments, and that all of those were addressed and discussed. Including the one of his that inferred a crippling permanent reduction of athleticism to the point of erasing his ceiling(which again, is a debatable assertion and is also dependent on what your sense of his ceiling was or is, and what pathways are available or not to achieve it).

quote:

---

Then what are you defending?

You came in here to defend SFP’s honor by claiming he was making one argument but as it continues to be pointed out to you, he was weaving in and out of several arguments, and that all of those were addressed and discussed. Including the one of his that inferred a crippling permanent reduction of athleticism to the point of erasing his ceiling(which again, is a debatable assertion and is also dependent on what your sense of his ceiling was or is).

---

I saw a handful of posts that clearly indicated he was expressing a point I agreed with.

You responded at least twice with a wall of claims that largely ignored that point and led to counter arguments that brought the conversation further off center.

You were making a ton of good points but it was exhausting to read because it didn’t really have anything to do with arguments of merit being made.

Except as I have been pointing out, we discussed those, but also you simultanesouly accused me of deflection, which is just untrue because I’m not ignoring the “core” point or whatever, because there wasn’t a core point from that poster, it’s been a slew of different theories, insinuations, and assumptions on offer, built from a number of allegations. Many of which are somewhat contradictory.

I don’t think there is actually enough evidence, and yesterday provided some strong counter evidence, that Zion’s injuries have permanently reduced what I think is a realistic ceiling for him, or the potential longevity of his career. And at a minimum, there simply isn’t enough conclusive evidence to go that direction if you are drawn to thinking that is the case. That people that have done so have actively ignored alternative explanations that seem to be more valid looking as time has gone on and after displays like yesterday.

quote:

---

Except as I have been pointing out, we discussed those, but also you simultanesouly accused me of deflection, which is just untrue because I’m not ignoring the “core” point or whatever,

---

You’re being disingenuous starting around 4:00 this afternoon.

Go back to the post where SFP posted the GIF of Zion making that block at Duke. That was a very narrow response focusing the conversation on something worthy of discussion.

Very next response from him (to Shel) he actually extended an olive branch while reinforcing the concerns over Zion’s health relative to his long term potential.

Next response he made was to you where he very concisely agreed with the way you framed his argument. Unfortunately, the very next sentence he made his fatal flaw by bringing up Lebron. I thought it was an effective illustration within the context of what he was trying to convey, but it gave you the ammo you needed to go completely off the rails.

Very next response in the thread was by CP3 reinforcing the point specific to Zion that mattered, but again unfortunately Lebron and Jordan are mentioned, if only to dismiss their relevance to the argument.

SFP’s very next response was to CP3 unequivocally demonstrating they were on the same page.

It was too late to stop the walls and walls of straw men at that point though.