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Zion’s Back (And You're Gonna Be In Trouble)

Hey, la-di-la, our Zion’s back.

By JD King

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NBA: San Antonio Spurs at New Orleans Pelicans
Jan 22, 2020; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson (1) drives past San Antonio Spurs center Jakob Poeltl (25) during the fourth quarter at the Smoothie King Center.
Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Well would you look at that: even though he clearly isn’t 100 percent - he wasn’t flying around or moving with preternatural quickness - Zion Williamson, who started kind of slow in his delayed NBA debut, still scored 17 straight points in the fourth quarter including - wait for it - four straight three pointers.

That’s NBA three pointers thank you very much.

If you wondered what he’d been doing while he was out, well, maybe we know.

It was a stunning run and included some powerful rebounds and a couple of gorgeous passes.

In short, even though he’s a bit behind and will take a while to catch up, even a lesser Zion Williamson is still better than 95 percent of the basketball players on this planet.

And any other planet you care to bring into the discussion.

New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry kept trying to sub him out but every time he did, Zion did something else spectacular and the bench player got waved back to the bench.

By the time he did go out, the crowd was delirious and kept chanting “we want Zion! We want Zion! We want Zion!”

It was one of the most electrifying NBA debuts in memory. The kid took just a few minutes to turn in a performance that the town and league will talk about for years to come.

He finished with 22 points, seven rebounds, three assists and unfortunately five turnovers.

That’s timing and will get better.

From here the Pels play Denver on Friday and Boston and Jason Tatum on Sunday.

And for highlight games, Zion will see the Grizzlies and buddy Ja Morant on the 31st, the Greek Freak on February 4th and the Lakers on the 25th.

We’ll get the pizza if you bring the beer. He’s what we’ve been waiting for.

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