Zion Williamson’s defense needs to improve if the New Orleans Pelicans want to take a step forward this season.
In many ways, Zion Williamson’s rookie season was a microcosm of the struggles that the New Orleans Pelicans encountered during the 2019-20 NBA year. He was an explosive and efficient scorer, especially when New Orleans pushed the ball, but also an inconsistent and ultimately poor defender.
The New Orleans Pelicans ranked fifth in the league in points per game, a figure good enough to make the playoffs as evidenced by the four teams above them (Bucks, Rockets, Mavericks, and Clippers), but gave up a dismal 117.1 points per game.
Most teams in the playoffs did not allow their opponents to score over 110 points per game and those closest to the Pelicans—the Portland Trail Blazers and the Houston Rockets—were buoyed by an incredible late-season run by and an all-time great scorer.
The Pelicans had the offensive power to comfortably enter the postseason but were let down by their porous defense. It is harsh to pinpoint this on Williamson and that is not the objective of this article. Basketball is a team game and the Pelicans’ leaky defensive play last season was a combination of many things.
It is also important to contextualize Williamson’s play by affirming that yes, he was a rookie and most rookies struggle on defense when they make the jump to the NBA. He also did not play until January 22 and, until the end of the season, had a bit of a stop-and-go dynamic for a multitude of reasons.
Yet, Williamson was and is expected to be the franchise cornerstone of a playoff-making team. It would be harsh to blame him for anything, but it is fair to demand more. The number one pick’s defense was rightfully lambasted during the Pelicans’ woeful run in the NBA bubble, but Williamson’s defensive struggles were percolating far before that.
I took an in-depth look at Williamson’s defense in the 2019-20 season by using NBA.com’s box score tool and watching every play with him on the floor that the league considers to have ended in a shot, assist or offensive rebound for the New Orleans Pelicans’ opponent.
It’s also important to note that the clips provided by the NBA don’t merely show the action of the shot or assist, for instance, but also the preceding seconds as to situate what is happening in the possession.
Here are my takeaways on Williamson’s strengths, improvement areas, and where he might fit best on defense going forward.
New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson must improve on defense
Isolations
Williamson’s biggest area of improvement this year will be defending isolations and generally any situation where the opponent has enough time to face him up and build a head of steam.
There’s no debating that Williamson is a once-in-a-lifetime type of athlete—at least vertically. He can move south-to-north either as a vertical spacer by playing above the rim, offensive rebounding or going coast-to-coast; however, his functional lateral athleticism was cause for concern last season.
Any situation where Williamson has to defend one-on-one that isn’t a post-up has the possibility to be a disaster for the New Orleans Pelicans.
Per NBA.com, he was in the 22nd percentile defending isolations. At this point, Williamson is not a realistically switchable defender, but his isolation problems don’t just come on switches. The results are far from encouraging even when he’s guarding players he should ostensibly be able to check.
Here, the Memphis Grizzlies run a simple hand-off from Ja Morant to Solomon Hill (by no means a top-tier athlete). Hill takes Williamson out of the play after one dribble and leaves the former Duke star chasing a block that simply doesn’t exist after Hill’s first dribble.
A similar scenario plays out with Williamson defending Brook Lopez when, again, he’s out of the play after one dribble. One could argue that Wesley Matthews’ screen complicates Williamson’s chances which, sure, but this is the NBA. Williamson sees the screen coming, it’s not like Lopez explodes to the basket, and the Pelicans’ no. 1 makes no second effort to get back into the play.
In an even simpler play, Jerami Grant gets the ball near the top of the key. At this point, Williamson is one-on-one but is completely unable to keep up with Grant. By the time Grant gets to the rim, Williamson is one or two steps behind and, as before, attempting a non-existent rejection.
As I touched on earlier, Williamson’s forays into defending smaller players tend to be just as bad, if not worse.
In layman’s terms, Williamson struggles to stay between his man and the basket. Whenever he tries to turn his body to do so (usually but not always when his man tries to change direction), he usually opens up far too much and gives his matchup ample room to do what they want. This problem is amplified when he’s on someone quicker and more agile than him.
The good news is that Williamson’s athleticism gives him certain leeway to make mistakes. He can use his forceful leap and hulking strength to produce jaw-loosening blocks, but only on occasion. The margin to do that significantly diminishes from college to the NBA where Williamson is facing the best of the best every night.
New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson’s defense needs to improve
Post-ups
Williamson was largely only nominally a 4 or a 5 on offense as a rookie, but on the other end of the floor, he has to guard 4s or 5s due to his frame and current mobility issues.
Williamson fared better defending post-ups than isolations (0.90 points per possession compared to 1.10 points), but there is still room for improvement. Opponents scored on him 45 percent of the time in the post, albeit on a small sample size of 24 possessions.
The main problem Williamson runs into defending post-ups is that he is just too short at 6-foot-6. At the end of the day, he can only do so much about that. It’s relatively easy to shoot over Williamson, even when he puts up a solid challenge—but he does not always do that.
Williamson has a habit of letting his man establish position in the post. When that happens, the only thing he can do is hope that 6-foot-8 Thaddeus Young, 6-foot-10 Ante Zizic or 7-foot Brook Lopez miss.
Williamson will always give up size, but he can make his man work a lot harder to get where he wants to be. He does just that to Anthony Davis in this clip, pushing Davis away from the paint and coercing him into a contested fadeaway jumper.
It’s possible that no matter how hard Williamson works, he will never be a stingy post defender. Draymond Green (44 percent) and PJ Tucker (46 percent), two players with comparable body types to Williamson’s and reportedly longer wingspans, let their opponents score nearly as much in the post in more possessions.
But this is a challenge Williamson will likely face this season. He defended 1.3 post-up possessions per game last year, sixth in the league among players who played more than 20 games for a team.
More games might not necessarily tilt the balance for the Pelicans’ star, but the way forward for Williamson in the post is to use his strength to dislodge opponents and knock them off balance to complicate their chances of scoring.
New Orleans Pelicans: Where Zion Williamson can improve on defense
Screens
Although Williamson is a middling post defender, post-ups are not in vogue across the NBA. Having him defend down low is a much better option than having him guard on the perimeter.
Williamson spent most possessions guarding the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love, LeBron James, Kyle Kuzma, Juancho Hernangomez, and Danilo Gallinari. Although the six forwards have a smattering of different skills, Williamson did not fare well defensively—especially when he had to chase them or move with them. Anthony shot 6-17 when guarded by Williamson, but it is important to note that many of these possessions were jabstep jumpers or standstill threes in which Williamson didn’t have much of a say in deciding the shots’ outcomes.
Love, James, Kuzma, Hernangomez, and Gallinari shot a combined 57 percent from the field when guarded by Williamson. It’s plausible to argue that James can and will score on anyone, but I don’t think the same can be said for the rest of the names on that list.
Williamson found chasing his defensive appointment on the perimeter difficult. Time and time again, he would die on screens and give up decent looks from three, even if those shots didn’t always go in. Despite his mack truck frame, Williamson was not adept at getting over screens, a problem which is amplified when facing mobile forwards who can shoot on the move like Gallinari or Love.
Opposing teams, such as the Sacramento Kings, eventually realized this and exploited Williamson’s weakness. Here, Nemanja Bjelica runs off a screen from Richaun Holmes, Williamson gets caught on the pick for a solid second, and Bjelica drains the triple. The Kings went back to the exact same play just moments after and Bjelica got another wide open look.
“Man, it’s hard to guard screens in the NBA,” this year’s number one pick Anthony Edwards said recently. “Them dudes big. Them dudes setting them screens, they be big. Once I watch enough film on that, it’ll become easy for me because I’m pretty big also.”
Hopefully, Williamson has realized that, as well—especially because there are times when he’s getting done on screens set by the likes of Buddy Hield and Kemba Walker.
Williamson also has to improve his pick-and-roll defense, something perfectly normal for a rookie in the NBA.
He needs to learn to navigate screen situations much better and position himself in a way where he can contain the ballhandler while not giving up passes to the roller or so he can backpedal to the screener.
This responsibility should not fall only on Williamson’s shoulders, however, as his teammates can do much better to help him out.
New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson’s role on defense
This season’s role
My reading on Zion Williamson’s defense might seem negative and, in all honesty, it is. He doesn’t do many things correctly on defense right now, but that’s the name of the game for a rookie in the NBA a lot of the time.
My biggest worry is those isolation scenarios where I don’t think the issue right now is necessarily a lack of understanding or the speed of the NBA. Williamson is not great at turning his hips or getting down in a stance, and he seems to simply lack the footspeed to keep up with smaller players. I believe he will eventually get to a point where he’s not a wreck, but I feel uncomfortable saying that he’ll be a plus or average one-on-one defender come 2022 or 2023 unless he makes huge leaps.
As I wrote, I think Williamson flashed some encouraging signs last year in the post. He will be smaller than a lot of bigs but his sturdy frame can absorb contact and make opponents work hard. That is predicated on both Williamson’s effort in the post and the situations his coaching staff puts him in.
I also think that he’ll gradually improve his pick-and-roll defense, as a lot of rookies tend to do. I’d like to believe that he will be coached through the nuances of this by his coach (especially right now when it’s someone like Stan Van Gundy who demands good defense) and teammates. Although I think Williamson finds it hard to backpedal and turn, a lot of pick-and-roll defense boils down to positioning, angles and team-wide communication, which is something that can be taught. There are plenty of examples of NBA players much less athletic than Williamson who have grown to hold their own in pick-and-roll.
I’m less optimistic in the short term about his prospects of chasing 4s or 5s that can shoot. Because he struggles so much one-on-one, it would be asinine to have him on conventional guards or ballhandlers, meaning that there will be games where Williamson has no choice but to guard the Bjelicas, Loves, and Gallinaris of the NBA—particularly after the acquisition of Steven Adams. I predict that he will suffer defensively this year in said games.
Right now, the ideal situation on defense for Williamson is likely to guard a non-shooting 4 in the mold of a Solomon Hill who is likely to stay in the corner and be his respective team’s last offensive option. That way, Williamson has more liberty to roam the floor and come over to help as a last line defender where he can come up with some spectacular blocks.
I also think he would do okay guarding non-shooting 5s even if they are active screensetters, as long as he doesn’t have to switch onto the small and the Pelicans do a much better job communicating on defense this season.
Stan Van Gundy has pledged to improve the Pelicans’ defense. In 11 seasons in the league, New Orleans’ new head coach has had a top-10 defense eight times. If he can achieve that while sustaining the team’s offensive firepower, the Western Conference will need to be on high alert for these Pelicans.