A Look At How The Pelicans Rebuilt Around Zion Williamson (Again)

Like a lot of basketball oriented people, we’ve been fascinated by Zion Williamson since he was in high school. At that point, also like a lot of people, we saw him primarily as a dunker rather than a basketball player.

We got a better idea of his game when Duke toured in Canada prior to his freshman year and by the time he blew everyone’s minds against Kentucky, we knew he wasn’t just a high flying Baby Jordan wanna-be. He was the real deal.

His time in New Orleans has had some ups and downs with injuries and some obvious frustrations, but the Pelicans seem to have retooled quickly after realizing that some of last year’s players weren't great fits next to him.

So now, according to this article and we basically agree, the Pelicans have made enough changes to give him a much better supporting cast. Brandon Ingram is still in town and New Orlean also adds former Virginia Cavalier Trey Murphy and some other potentially interesting picks including Herbert Jones and second round picks Jared Butler from Baylor and Greg Jones from Texas, who was widely expected to be picked much higher, at least earlier in his career.

Devonte Graham will loosen up the inside with his three point shooting and Jonas Valančiūnas should be a better fit than Steven Adams was.

What we’d like is a roster that really frees Williamson to do play in the open court and be creative, and we think they may have at least the start of that. Some of the other young players should mature too and hopefully help out.

As always, it’s going to be fun to watch how a Zion Williamson team works. For our money, he’s the most fun guy to watch in basketball today.