If I were to tell you last year that we would hardly see a Zion Williamson highlight this season, you would have laughed me into next week. We all saw it. Last season, once he was healthy, ESPN turned into the Zion News Network. We couldn’t go ONE game without seeing what Zion was doing, and for good reason. It seemed like every time he touched the basketball, he did something spectacular with it. Let’s not forget how electric his debut was against the Spurs. Ever since he was in 9th grade, we’ve seen every move that he’s made on the basketball floor. Every dunk, every block, every spectacular play, and it was normal. So what’s different this year?
I think this problem has a couple folds. Let’s start with Zion himself. I’m not the first to notice that Zion isn’t playing as hard on defense as he did in college. That isn’t really a big deal, per say. Players in the NBA focus on offense because the rules make it an offensive league. To go against my dad’s wishes, players in the NBA are more concerned about scoring 30 in a game, than grabbing 12 rebounds and getting 4 blocks and 2 steals. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, but not many. So it would only be natural for Zion to save his energy to help the Pelicans’ offense, especially given his conditioning issues in the past, and his injury history. If he were to play harder on defense, and pin a few shots on the glass, I’m sure those videos would make the rounds and go viral to help Zion’s case.
It isn’t like Zion has played poorly this season either. He’s played 21 games this season, and has averaged 23.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, while shooting 59.6% from the field, and most importantly in my eyes, and respectable 36% from deep. Zion has had some viral moments this year too. He barreled into Richaun Holmes and sent him into the stands, and he dunked on Chimezie Metu so hard that it made me realize that he was an actual NBA player. So Zion has had a few moments this year, but nothing like last year. Last season, Zion couldn’t sneeze without us seeing it on Twitter or YouTube. The thing that I think has changed this year isn’t Zion, it’s the highlight outlets.
I don’t think that it should be this way, but outlets like Overtime, House of Highlights, and ESPN have a habit of having “Flavors of the Month,” or more accurately, “Flavors of the Season.” There are some players that break this rule, obviously. I think I’ve seen every single LeBron highlight there is to see since about 2006 due to these kinds of outlets, but for the most part it seems like those outlets focus on one player and pump out all kinds of highlights for them every single year. Don’t believe me? Think about this. Zion was all the rage last year, right? The year before? Trae Young and Luka Doncic. A couple of years ago, it was all about Andrew Wiggins. Donovan Mitchell got a lot of screen time with them his rookie year. This year? LaMelo Ball, obviously. We’ve seen everything Ball has done in his rookie year, including getting halftime, and sometimes quarterly breakdowns of his performances.
I think the biggest reason for this change in focus is that the general public gets bored very easily. I don’t expect the general public to love basketball as much as I do. That would certainly be unhealthy, to say the least. For the more casual watchers of the NBA, they’re looking for highlights. Sure, they might sit down and watch a game on TNT if they’re around, but most of the time, they’re looking for quick hits of content that they can watch on their phone. On top of that, fans have a recency bias. The last big name they hear is the player they want to see. LaMelo Ball is a rookie this year, so everyone and their grandmother wants to see how many points he had.
Is there anything that we can do to fix this? I don’t think so, sadly. I think that this is just how humans are wired now. We get bored too easily to take in how good a player that isn’t the newest and hottest commodity on a nightly basis. My only hope is that people will change how they view NBA content. Since I don’t think that will happen, the only thing to do is hope that people like the writers at ESPN, The Athletic, The Ringer, and on a much lesser scale, myself, continue to highlight players who aren’t in the public eye. Zion has had a great season this year, and he should be getting more credit for it. I’m just doing my part.
Round The Game 
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