Zion Williamson’s weight loss, New Orleans Pelicans surge up Western Conference standings, playoffs seeding

Sometimes it is easy to forget that Zion Williamson has never played in an NBA playoff game.

For an NBA prospect like few others, described by ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmidt as a “physical specimen unlike any we’ve seen in recent memory”, expectations were high for Williamson when he entered the league.

“It’s definitely sky’s the limit,” Isiah Thomas told the New York Post in 2019.

“His athleticism is eye-opening. Very few people come to our league with this type of athleticism… if he continues to grow and mature he can be quite special.”

Watch an average of 9 NBA Regular Season games per week LIVE on ESPN, available via Kayo. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >

That growth and development though has not been as linear a process as hoped, with injuries plaguing Williamson’s career while his lack of conditioning has also constantly been under the microscope.

Even earlier this year, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith took a cheap shot at Williamson’s weight, prompting the Pelicans to return serve with a not-so-subtle montage of his college basketball highlights.

In the background though, Williamson has been drowning out all that noise and quietly going about his business, rewriting his story and, save for an injury (knock on wood), setting himself and the Pelicans up for the first postseason run of his career.

Only last Saturday Williamson put on another All-Star calibre showing as he scored 34 points to go with seven rebounds, four assists and three steals in a 112-104 win over the Clippers.

It was the third time Los Angeles, another Western Conference championship contender, had lost to New Orleans this season and coach Ty Lue didn’t have to think too hard to come up with an answer for their struggles against the Pelicans.

“Zion, down the stretch, of all three games they’ve won this year, three out of four, he dominated us the last six minutes of the third quarter,” Lue said after their most recent loss.

It didn’t come as a surprise either. It wasn’t as if Lue or the Clippers hadn’t planned for it.

“We talked about before the game,” Lue added, “and the whole fourth [quarter]”.

But even that wasn’t enough. Williamson has now averaged 24.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, five assists, and 1.8 steals in four games against the Clippers this season.

It is a good sign for the Pelicans ahead of the postseason that Williamson, without any playoffs experience, is performing at such a high level against one of the Conference’s top teams.

And it isn’t just against the Clippers that Williamson is dominating, averaging 23.9 points, 7.9 rebounds and 5.0 assists in the past month alone. New Orleans has a 6-1 record in that stretch.

According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, people in New Orleans have been saying that Williamson has lost at least 25 pounds (11 kilograms) since December, when the Pelicans crashed out of the In-Season Tournament after a 133-89 loss to the Lakers.

“He’s playing fewer minutes and I think that helps as well, but I’ve got people telling me he’s lost 25 pounds,” he said on his podcast, ‘Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective’.

ESPN’s Andrew Lopez reported as much on the podcast too, telling Windhorst that he has “heard a lot of great things from multiple people in New Orleans” about Williamson recently.

“You can see it,” Lopez said.

“If you go back and look at him in the In-Season Tournament, and you look at him now, he looks completely different.

“Frankly, they were embarrassed in Las Vegas. It was the first on-that-stage moment for them. He’d had games where, like Christmas Day games, where he has been featured and opening nights, where he hasn’t been available.

“This was his game and this was supposed to be it … and it went completely the wrong way. I think since that moment, there was a team meeting around that time as well, things have gone on the up-and-up for him, and looks like a completely different player.

“Like you I’ve heard a lot of great things from multiple people in New Orleans about the buy-in that he’s had, the transformation in his body.

“Everything for him now feels and looks different. If you look at him [in] just the last month, it looks like the best he’s been in the NBA since he’s come in.”

That is not just a product of improvements to Williamson’s diet and conditioning though.

It also goes back to the fact he is healthy. The Pelicans as a team are largely healthy too, having battled a number of injuries to key players in the past few seasons.

On a specific note though, New Orleans has also benefited from getting the ball in Williamson’s hands more, reviving the ‘Point Zion’ experiment under former Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy that made him even more of a matchup nightmare for opposition coaches.

Former Pelican JJ Redick saw the direct impact of using Williamson as a ball-handler when playing alongside him and expertly broke down how the adjustment has helped further unlock New Orleans’ offensive potential.

Speaking on his podcast ‘The Old Man & the Three’ in late February, Redick said that in their last nine games with Williamson bringing the ball up the floor the Pelicans had been averaging 1.44 points per play on those possessions.

He also went on to add that New Orleans was averaging 1.33 points per possession on any Williamson pick-and-roll since February.

“The way he is moving. This is like the Zion we all envisioned,” Redick said.

“There is a burst, there is a pop to the way he is pushing to the basket. There is an energy to it. It reminds me of Giannis, it reminds me of LeBron, it reminds me of Ben Simmons in Philadelphia.

“It is a weapon and he has completely weaponised his athleticism and skillset in transition when he gets a defensive rebound.”

Beyond the transition game, Redick also pointed to the success the Pelicans had running empty side pick-and-rolls with Williamson and Jonas Valanciunas along with the spacing it creates by having the former No. 1 overall pick handle the ball at the start of possessions instead of placing him in the dunker’s spot.

Teammate Trey Murphy, who has shot 39.3 per cent from 3-point range in his three seasons at New Orleans, spoke to the benefit of having Williamson run the floor after a 117-106 win over the Clippers last month.

Williamson had 21 points and 10 assists in that win, marking the first time in his career that he had over 20 points and 10 assists in a game according to The Athletic’s Will Guillory.

“You’re seeing him take that superstar leap,” Murphy said.

“A lot of guys come into the league that have that power and that offensive prowess that don’t have to pass too often. They just get to their buckets.

“They make that offensive leap when they start getting their teammates involved because then guys have to be a lot closer to their man. Now, you have more space to attack.

“I think he’s really figuring it out. He’s starting to direct the offence.

“There’s been a lot of times he’s told me, ‘Just go up high slot’, like he’ll be in the middle of a play pointing me to the high slot because he knows they’re not going to help as much and if they do it’ll be a 3. “You can just see his maturation process as the season progresses.”

Pelicans coach Willie Green, meanwhile, told reporters after that game that the change to have Williamson initiate the offence more often was a way to keep the opposition in two minds.

“It was harder for teams to help,” Green said.

“When he has the ball, you’ve got to make some choices. Are you going to help off CJ [McCollum]? Are you going to help off Brandon [Ingram]? Herb [Jones] is shooting the ball really well. When he [Williamson] doesn’t have it, they can clog the lane a bit more.”

For the Pelicans as a team in general, finding their offensive identity has been a challenge considering the injuries in key positions last season.

Meanwhile, even when healthy this year, Williamson and Ingram’s on-court chemistry has at times been a work in progress.

With ‘Point Zion’, however, New Orleans leaned more heavily into Williamson becoming an even more defining feature of its identity and the 23-year-old looks primed for his first postseason tilt as a result.

“I loved his patience,” added Green of Williamson’s 21-point, 10-assist game against L.A.

“He did a great job finding his teammates. He missed a few easy buckets at the basket that he normally would make, but he stuck with it. Finally, you could see him starting to get a little rhythm in the second half. We just kept going towards him.

“As we’re figuring out our team, we’re a really good offensive team to start games when we get Z the ball. Then BI gets open shots, CJ gets open shots, and they have to take them.

“As the game progresses, Brandon will get (the ball), CJ will get it. They will pick and roll.

“We’re going to do a few sets for them but Z does a great job setting the table for us early.”