How does Zion Williamson need to grow at Duke?

There’s always at least one player in each high school recruiting class that pretty much everyone knows. They may not be the best player, necessarily, but at least one player “has next” in each class. Ben Simmons. Luka Doncic. Jabari Parker. Jahlil Okafor. There’s always one high school phenom with a reputation that precedes his arrival on campus.

In 2019, that player is very obviously Zion Williamson.

People have been buzzing about Zion over the past two years thanks to his seemingly superhuman athleticism and size combination. Williamson being 270 pounds and floating to the degree he does when he jumps is a great starting point for why he deserves consideration as the number one pick. In the past 15 years, there have only been two players his size that can dunk like he can as a high school senior: Blake Griffin, and of course, LeBron James.

The culture of high school basketball can make things a little outlandish when it comes to athleticism — the scale of athletic difference between your typical high school team and even the smallest Division I school is like comparing a phonograph to a guitar amp. That can make athletic players seem more impressive than they are.

Okafor definitely was victim of this, and many players each year, like Marques Bolden and Terrence Ferguson, struggle mightily at a higher level despite having enough gifts to dominate the high school scene. Williamson definitely has potential to be this type of player, given how many of his highlights come in situations like this.

Two things assuage those concerns. The first is that Williamson’s athleticism and skill set clearly translated on the All-Star circuit and in AAU tournaments, and he certainly looked the part of a top three player in the class in the McDonalds All-Star Game. The second piece is his degree of dominance — sure, it’s easy to tell when there’s a future NBA player on the floor in a high school game, but few players can make it look like nine other players are having to contend with Thanos on the floor.

Proof of concept is well established with Zion. While he is arguably both undersized and oversized for the NBA floor — standing just 6-foot-6 with a 6-foot-10 wingspan, but reportedly weighing at 280-plus pounds of mostly muscle =- Williamson has the potential to turn that into an incredible matchup problem at the NBA level. He is very coordinated for his size, and shows the potential to be a lead scorer thanks to his ability to create off the bounce. He has the burst of a guard off the dribble, and a handle that’s advanced enough that he isn’t just a straight-line driver.

Williamson’s handle is so advanced at this point that he even should get pick-and-roll possessions this year at Duke, and he has a comfort level shooting off the dribble that you wouldn’t expect from a player who can get to the rim as easily as Williamson does. And we shouldn’t bury the lede here — that’s what he’s going to be best at in the NBA. With his explosion, touch, and handle, he’s a freight train headed towards the rim, to the point that smaller players just bounce off of him. Zion is very likely to be a player that you cannot switch your guards onto in the NBA, and that’s going to make him a dangerous playoff player.

Williamson combines his on-ball skills with a bevy of high-motor, traditional power forward traits. He should be an elite rebounder thanks to his strength, even if that’s an area of his stat profile that should not be trusted right now. Williamson routinely ripped balls away from smaller players at the high school level, but his instincts do appear strong. He also converted 69.5 percent from two in the Adidas AAU circuit, and has excellent touch finishing as a cutter and out of the dunker spot.

Defensively, there isn’t really much to glean from his high school film — he looked like a ferocious rim protector at times, but that’s very unlikely to translate due to his size. He does have excellent flexibility when defending on the perimeter, with the ability to flip his hips and change direction easily, and create havoc plays with his hands. He’s also a very strong rebounder from the perimeter, crashing consistently off of perimeter players to fight for the ball once the shot goes up. And while his shot-blocking may not be translatable in the halfcourt, he’s a fearsome transition defender. But the problem is that he also took many possessions off, as star high school athletes are prone to do, so he has a lot to prove consistency-wise when he steps on the floor for Duke.

The big worry about Zion for many scouts is the role he will play — but this seems short-sighted given his talents. It seems pretty clear that his ideal path to NBA stardom will be as a super-athletic Paul Millsap type, a 4 that can create from the elbow to the perimeter, play either role in the pick-and-roll, and score out of complimentary roles, particularly transition, cuts, and pick-and-pops. Defensively, his role should be as a decent-to-good perimeter defender, helping to contain pick-and-rolls, switching actions, and of course, blocking shots on the weak side. Yeah, he’s small, but it’s not like he’s Chuck Hayes. If Williamson’s self-creation hits its peak, he’s a 3 on defense and a 4 on offense, and potentially one of the most fearsome small-ball 4 in the league.

He has to get there, though, and this season at Duke is going to be incredibly important for removing some of those concerns about his likelihood of reaching that ceiling. While Williamson’s athleticism has shown to translate against better competition, the skills he’ll need to succeed even in college are going to need to be improved. Primarily, that focus will be on the defensive end, where his conditioning needs improvement, and his bad habits may not be worked on to the degree they need to, given how past Duke teams have handled players with those same concerns. If the solution is “just play zone!,” that does nothing for anyone other than Coach K.

But even more so, Zion needs offensive refinement to really deserve the ceiling projection he’s getting right now. Much like Marvin Bagley, Williamson’s avoidance of his non-dominant hand while finishing is an issue. While Williamson is left-handed, and that adds a very slight advantage, he still almost never finishes right, and that is going to be easily schemed for in the NBA. He also needs work on his spot-up shooting, because while his jumper mechanics are decent, he hasn’t had success with shooting from distance to date. The main issue is the tightness of his mechanics — he swings the ball forward away from his body on his gather, which delays his release.

Williamson also needs improvement in his passing ability. He’s shown the capability to be a decent ball-mover, finding simple reads in the offense, especially in AAU. But when it comes to creating in the pick-and-roll, that piece is lacking right now. Williamson had an 85/15 split in the pick-and-roll between shooting and passing, per Synergy, and he routinely missed simple reads in the pick-and-roll, particularly missing open shooters in the corners. If he’s going to be a pick-and-roll ball-handler in the NBA, he’s going to have to be able to recognize when the defense has created a non-scoring chance for him. So far, he hasn’t proven that he can do this.

There’s also the spectre of Duke’s issues with creating opportunities for their elite talents hanging over the season. For the past two seasons, Duke has struggled to put their best player in consistent positions to use their best talents — Jayson Tatum was pigeon-holed into being an elbow creator and isolation scorer, while Wendell Carter was forced out of short-roll and post opportunities that would have better utilized his creation skills. With R.J. Barrett and Cameron Reddish around, the potential that Williamson has the same happen to him is probably high. Will he have the ideal distribution of creation opportunities to truly figure out the answers to these questions? That remains to be seen.

Zion Williamson is an absurd athlete, and he has high star potential at this point. But he has to get there, and that’s going to involve significant improvement in areas that will differentiate between whether he’s a good NBA player, or a future star. While it’s likely that he shows development given his age, the burden of proof is definitely on him this season. We know he has the talent to be the number one or number two pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. But he has to prove that he’ll be worth that.