SPARTANBURG, S.C. _ Zion Williamson is 16, and I believe he would win the NBA's dunk contest this All-Star Weekend if he could only enter.
Lee Sartor, Williamson's high school coach at Spartanburg Day School, said North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams had the following exchange with the star 6-foot-7 junior forward not long ago: "Roy Williams told Zion that he was probably one of the best high school players he's seen since Michael Jordan."
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski brought his whole staff along with him to Spartanburg on a recruiting visit to see Williamson. Kansas coach Bill Self showed up as part of a sold-out crowd for a Spartanburg Day game recently _ the school had to start selling tickets for the first time this year instead of letting people in for free because of the demand.
Rapper Drake had his picture taken wearing Williamson's No. 12 Spartanburg Day School jersey on social media and posted it on Instagram last month. Drake and Zion now text occasionally.
But the player everyone around Spartanburg just calls "Zion" _ in the same way LeBron (James) and Steph (Curry) are known by one name only in far wider basketball circles _ cannot do everything.
For instance: Williamson can't drive.
Williamson hasn't found time to take the driver's education class. He doesn't turn 17 until July, so for now his parents shepherd him everywhere.
On the court, though, driving is his thing. Williamson frequently elevates for dunks of near-Biblical proportions, which makes sense given that his name came from the Bible at the suggestion of his grandmother. Mount Zion was considered the highest point in ancient Jerusalem. As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 48: "Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion."
This Zion certainly spreads joy with his own elevation. In this social-media age, clips of those dunks are digitally passed from screen to screen with religious fervor. Williamson may or may not be the best high-school dunker ever, but he has to be the most publicized.
In the game I watched Monday night in Spartanburg, "Mount Zion" rose into the air for eight dunks that accounted for nearly half of his 34 points. Those dunks included two I had never seen a 16-year-old do.
One was a monstrous tomahawk jam worthy of former NBA dunk champion Vince Carter in his prime. Williamson is left-handed, but he performed it with his right hand just for the heck of it.
The other was a 360-degree windmill dunk so transcendent that it was No. 1 on "ESPN's Top 10 Plays" that night.
"Zion Williamson, 16 years old _ that happened!" a nearly breathless ESPN anchor said. "A 360 windmill dunk _ in a game!"
