YouTube Gold: Zion Williamson Takes It To Portland

Former Blue Devil Zion Williamson continues to do things that are pretty amazing.

At 6-6 and 285, it’s sort of impossible for him to be as quick as he is, or should be at any rate.

But night after night, he does them. However, he’s doing them quite differently now than he did at Duke.

At Duke, he just overhwelmed people. This was most typified by the massive block he had at Virginia on D’Andre Hunter, but he would just overwhelm people with talent and often finish plays with punishing dunks.

He’s playing a different game now.

He still dunks, but often he seems to prefer to make a more simple layup.

Granted, they often come after a phenomenal move, but he’s not trying to dunk everything anymore.

Second, his conditioning overhaul is paying big dividends. He can run like he hasn’t for awhile.

And third, if you remember, one of the reasons he chose Duke was because Mike Krzyzewski recruited him as a basketball player, not just an athletic prodigy.

More and more, he’s showing that, above all, Zion Williamson is a basketball player.

Watch these highlights from the Pelicans game against Portland. Williamson can overwhelm when he wants to, take control when he must, but he prefers to work within the framework of the team. So you see him making really smart passes to open teammates. You see the defense collapse on him and him finding the open man.

He’s even hitting some three pointers. It’s not that he’s never done it, but he’s taking what the defense gives instead of merely imposing himself on it.

Brandon Ingram had 14 points and five rebounds, but he wasn’t the only other Brotherhood member in this game.

Justin Winslow, who has had a tough couple of years due to injuries, started for the Blazers and had 12 points, eight rebounds and six assists.

It’s wonderful to see him doing well.