Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans and Luka of the Dallas Mavericks are the two best young stars in the NBA, but which one would be the better player to start a franchise?
If you polled NBA teams and asked who’d they prefer between Zion Williamson and Luka Doncic, you’d get 28 enthusiastic “Eithers” as answers. Zion is the budding face of the NBA for the New Orleans Pelicans and Luka is already one of the best point guards in the game.
In a recent Twitter poll, our friends at Hoops Habit asked the question, “if you are starting a franchise, who are you starting it with?”
The ESPN survey got us thinking. If you’re starting a franchise, who are you starting it with?
— HoopsHabit (@HoopsHabit) April 28, 2020
In final results, Luka finished with 75 percent of the vote, while Zion finished in a distant second with 14 percent.
We didn’t feel like this did justice to the New Orleans Pelicans’ rookie, so we decided to run our own poll and narrowed the field to just two.
Ok, let's do our own poll. Who would you rather start a franchise with?
— Pelican Debrief (@PelicanDebrief) April 28, 2020
While we admit that our poll is slightly biased in favor of Zion Williamson, it shows that opinions vary around the NBA community about which young player is best.
The fact is that you couldn’t go wrong with either of them. Both Doncic and Zion Williamson are the types of generational talents that all teams hope to get in the draft.
They both have skills that make them easy to build around, and seem to be likable, high-character guys who can be the face of a franchise.
There are 28 other teams in the league who wish they had either of them and a strong case can be made for either as the best franchise starter.
We made a case for both Doncic and Zion Williamson using stats and intangibles to come to a conclusion about which young player would be the best one start a franchise.