re: Zion still has not developed...

More than a season when you look at overall over 3 years.

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Zion shot 54% in his first 5 games in 2020. He finished the season at 61%.

Let's wait for a large enough sample size before we go crazy about Zion's efficiency.

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Agreed. His defense is worrisome though as it's always been an issue.

You are right. The two missed rebounds by Naji were losing plays. Get one of them and we win. Dyson makes one free throw and we win. Trey doesn’t fall asleep defensively and actually covers the three point line and we win.

Zion was pretty much unguardable in the fourth qtr. He either scored or assisted on most buckets for a stretch.

Someone tell CJ to pass the ball. He is not like that. He will take a hard contested shot instead of hitting the open man.

Coaches are scared of him. SMH.

10 for 27 is a problem. Always high volume and low output.

I don't know how many of you have watched the games, including all of last night, but you can't sit here and tell me that what Zion is doing has been great, despite the nice stats.

I have no problem with having him take guys on 1v1 when it's a clear advantage, and he does a good job passing out of it to open guys usually. Even Zion said it the other night "you're not going to stop me from getting to where i want to go" or something like that. HE does the same damn thing every time, and it's extremely impressive that he still can't be stopped more often than not.
BUT....i hate the way our team looks when he's on the floor more often than not. There's no movement on offense when we are just feeding him the ball. No one else seems to be involved, it's just give him the ball and wait and see what happens. That is an offensive scheme that will not produce wins more often than not.
Defensively he's fricking terrible, and it has a lot more to do with his lack of giving a shite on that end. He looks like lazy Jim Harden out there most of the time, with his man cutting into the paint without him knowing far too often. His on ball defense is even worst somehow. Several times last night he made no effort to get back on D, and did the same on offense a few times as well. He's not in game shape, at least not the type of shape i'd expect him to be in. You don't see other guys sucking wind like you see him so often. Every time free throws are shot he looks like he's going to fall down from exhaustion as he stands there with his hands on his knees.


I know the stat is very flawed, but it was very obvious to most last night that when you checked the box score after the game, Zion was going to have the worst +/- on the team, and Jose and Nance would have the highest.

Also there was a time last night where we went several possessions without Zion touching the ball at all in that 4th quarter. AD said it last night as well that Zion needs to move when off the ball.
He's still fat and out of shape. And if you want to dispute that fact, then the alternative is he's in shape, and just a lazy arse. and to be honest, it's a bit of both. The amount of complaining he's doing is ridiculous. I get it, he's getting fouled constantly, but bitching about it constantly and not getting back on defense isnt' helping your team. Yelling "and 1" on a rebound and put back when no one touches you is a real stupid look as well, something he did last night.


The positives in all of this, is Zion is putting up great stats, but has so much room to get better as a basketball player. Lets just hope he sees it, puts in the work, and continues to get better.
And hopefully getting BI back will make a huge difference in how this offense looks b/c it looks a bit lost without him.

It's a growing process. Willie proved to us last year that he can improve a team as the season progresses. Zion will get better on defense. The offense will get better with him. He's averaging a career high in asts and that may creep up to over 5 per when Ingram gets back.

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I don't know how many of you have watched the games, including all of last night, but you can't sit here and tell me that what Zion is doing has been great, despite the nice stats.

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Definitely not. He's taking 2 more shots per game and scoring more than 4 less points than 2 seasons ago. He's gone from elite scoring efficiency to below NBA average.


Now, I do think a big part of that is just needing playing time to get back into the swing of things. But I also think another big part of that is we are no longer doing the things we did 2 seasons ago to allow him to flourish.


Seems the only 2 spots we give him the ball or in the post and on that play I hate where the center is at the free throw line and we do the dribble hand off. Zion gets the ball in the worst possible spot for spacing, it makes no sense at all IMO. YOu give him the ball with his man on him, JVal right in the way and JVal's man easily able to double him...why?

Give him the ball and everyone space out entirely. You can put JVal in the dunker spot too, that's fine. But just having 4 or 5 guys(sometimes more) jumbled together at the FT line with bad spacing where Zion gets the ball is maddening.


We have a good but not elite offense. Using Zion better than we have so far can get us to elite.

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Zion will get better on defense.

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Well he can't get much worst.
The only positive thing about his defense last night was Lebron's old arse thinking he could take him and putting up fade away bricks after taking 10 seconds to dribble back and forth through his legs 4 times.


I'm sure he can improve marginally defensively, but until he wakes the frick up and gets in better shape, that ain't happening. I don't know if he can't get in a better defensive stance physically, or if he just doesn't want to, but he'll never be worth a shite with his on ball defense standing straight up like does. It's not high school anymore, you can't just let them go by you and you catch up and block them.
and letting guys cut right past you into the paint without you knowing isn't something you learn to be better at. You simply get better by paying fricking attention.

My hope was we could use him as a weakside defender to protect the rim more, like Evan Mobley, but Zion isn't blocking anyone, and more often than not he's fouling guys that are getting to the rim.

He's not in shape, simple as that, and i think that is having a big affect on why he looks so terrible on defense. He's taking breaks defensively and putting all his energy (after he walks up the court) on the offensive end (when he as the ball in his hands). If the ball isn't in his hands, he's easily the worst player on the court on both ends of the floor right now.

I still don’t think some of the guys are comfortable playing with Zion yet. It shows. That’s why the offense seems to flow better when he’s not out there. Pretty much everyone else has had time to gel together. Zion is still figuring things out AND is trying to develop chemistry with the team.

And he still had 27/5/5. I get the frustrations about his D. He’s really bad. But he’s still giving you enough offensively to keep him out there most nights. I’m sure WG is showing him tape and showing him how bad he is on D. Give it time. We seem to blame Zion like this after every fricking loss. Y’all have to get a damn grip

Plus guards are easier to translate to the NBA than bigs. Not many bigs can just come in and dominate. We saw what Zion did in his first year being the most efficient player in history. I firmly believe he can do that again when he gels back into the team.