Zion Williamson’s highly anticipated NBA Summer League debut was cut short after just nine minutes of action due to a bone bruise suffered in a collision, but it didn’t take long for basketball analysts to begin arguing that Williamson’s minor injury was a clear indication that he needs to make major changes to his physique.
ESPN’s Seth Greenberg called Williamson “significantly overweight,” while Charles Barkley said that Williamson isn’t “fat,” but can’t realistically play his whole career at his listed weight of 285. As things stand, Williamson will enter his rookie season as the second-heaviest player in the NBA, behind only Mavericks behemoth Boban Marjanovic, who is eight inches taller than Zion.
According to Pelicans executive vice president David Griffin, though, Williamson is slowly closing the height gap to Boban, and the Pelicans are focusing on his conditioning, not his playing weight. In an interview with The Athletic, Griffin said that the 19-year-old is still growing, and the team is “not exactly sure” what a fully mature Zion even looks like.
Via The Athletic:
“Yeah, I don’t know that we can determine a weight yet. Zion’s still growing. One of the things that’s lost in this whole process is that, like Jaxson Hayes, Zion is still getting taller. We’re not exactly sure what he’ll look like in the end. So a playing weight is not what you look for. What you look for is to be in top condition, to have the kind of core strength and stability that you need to control all of the incredible torque that his athleticism can generate…. So what you have to do with him is do everything you can from a core and stability standpoint to give him more ability to control what he already has in terms of strength and speed.”
Griffin noted in the interview that Williamson has grown taller than former Duke teammate R.J. Barrett in the last year. Both Barrett and Williamson were listed as 6-foot-7 at Duke, but Barrett did have a small height advantage on Zion in early 2018.
Here are Barrett and Williamson (with Cam Reddish) at the McDonalds All-American game:
Here they are just before the 2019 NBA Draft:
