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We’ve been thrilled to watch Zion Williamson finally get his NBA career under way but observant Duke fans can tell he wasn’t fully himself yet.
Well he’s much closer now.
Against Portland he had a career high 31 points but that’s not the thing. The thing is his sense of anticipation is back. He can strike very quickly again. At his best, Williamson can dictate the terms of engagement and he did that a lot in this game.
He’s soaring again, he’s disrupting on defense and the other team simply can’t figure out how to deal with him.
Earlier he was able to do what he wanted on offense but not on defense. We saw him just putting a hand up when someone’s shooting and that’s not very Zion-like.
We only got to see highlights of this game but it looks like he’s just about there. It’s still amazing - always amazing - to watch him do this stuff.
Our advice this coming weekend is to watch the Rising Stars Game. We think that’s very likely to be a coming-out party for the Zion we saw at Duke.