Year 1 Zion vs Year 5 Zion

This is the big red flag for me … he was healthy going into the offseason and has remained healthy to this point yet his body and performance has been worse .

The only thing in the way of his progress his him period.

He’s an incredibly talented player who has zero desire to be great. It is what it is. We’ve all tried to stupidly rationalize his shortcomings the last few years but the dude just doesn’t have what it takes to be a top guy.

And yet he still leads the team in PER...

Shitty coaching often leads to uninspired play

I take no exceptions with you saying Zion isn't the dude he should be, that much is obvious. But...

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Everyone seems fit to bury Willie, but this team is built assuming Zion is a superstar.

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The last time we saw Zion play basketball before this season, he was playing at a legit MVP caliber and winning games for this team.

Then when he returned, this season, Willie now has him relegated to the #2 option, clearly behind BI.

We, mostly Zion, has wasted the 1st 4 years of his career for us to figure out just how good he truly is. Now he's finally healthy this season, and the Pels/Willie are wasting yet another year to find out what he can do as the #1 option.

This should be a sink or swim year, build literally everything around Zion, make Zion the guy on court just like Luka/Jokic/Haliburton, all those dudes who have the ball in their hands at all times. Yes, Zion is out of shape, that doesn't matter to me as it relates to what I'm saying. Make him the guy any way. Let him prove that he can or cannot be that #1 dude like he was showing he could do last season.

I'd prefer this team be 14-17 while having tried it with everything revolving around Zion and just knowing it failed and he's not good enough. But instead Zion is still not playing well but we also don't know if making him the #1 option that has the ball in his hands wouldn't change that. It did change that last season and that's when he was at his best. Then we never tried it again.

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Year 5 Zion should be averaging 36 minutes a game and close to 30 points. That’s the player we built this team for.

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Bingo. Won't really repeat my long post, but yes, fat and out of shape or not, play him 36 minutes, put the ball in his hands at every point, and if he fails, so be it.

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The administration’s focus was to build a team to compliment Zion

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But then Willie doesn't play Zion with the guys that actually compliment him, nor does he play Zion in the role as the #1 option for this team. That's why it's a failure across the board, a collective massive failure to this point.

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Does this team really play better with Zion in the line up?

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This year, no. The previous 4 years, yes by a long shot.

I wish they would just give him the keys right off the bat like SVG did and let him sink or swing as the guy. Too many mixed messages and too much hot potatoing with the go-to option from game to game.

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I wish they would just give him the keys right off the bat like SVG did and let him sink or swing as the guy. Too many mixed messages and too much hot potatoing with the go-to option from game to game.

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I 100% agree and I've been a zion hater all year. He's behind Ingram and CJ in FGAs yet he's supposed to be our number one option and those guys are supposed to play off of him.

He takes 15 shots a game, that's 54th in the league. Why is he not taking 20 shots?

What other number 1 option gets the 3rd most shots on their team?

I think you completely missed my point. All those guys never missed a whole seasons or big chunks of a season as they progressed in their career. When you miss games like Zion does(which is a lot of time his fault) it completely sets you back in regards to timelines. In total Zion so far in his career has played only one season with 50 or more games. So saying he hasn’t improved from year 1 to year 5- yeah he’s hasn’t but hes also only played one full season. Again I’m not saying its not Zion’s fault but its also silly expecting progression in his game when the guy more than half the time isn’t on the court.

I guess the choice is this: we had the path of giving Zion the tools that allowed hm to have success staying in the paint and not be double teamed. So that was achieved by increasing the 3-point shooters. But then there is Willie Green’s vision. It seems as though the surrounding players are more in tune with Willie Green’s vision ( which I think leads to success) than Zion’s one dimensional, plodding play style.