New Orleans Pelicans: How Zion Williamson can win MVP next season

New Orleans Pelicans: How Zion Williamson can win MVP

Lead the league in scoring

Since Zion won’t go into next season as one of the frontrunners for MVP, he’s going to have to do even more than the top guys to work his way into the discussion.

All of the top-5 MVP candidates from this season finished in the top-10 in scoring, which you would expect. Embiid ended up leading the NBA at just over 30 points per game, which I think is realistic for Zion Williamson if he can stay healthy.

Zion scored 27 points per game in his second season, so it’s not a stretch to think he can bump that up with a better team around him and more offensive weapons in his arsenal.

The only issue holding him back here (aside from the obvious injury problems) is that the Pels now have CJ McCollum and Brandon Ingram has taken over the role of lead scorer. The ball could be spread around more than it was when Zion was running the point and doing whatever he wanted on offense.

Willie Green employs more of a team concept, so may ask Zion to defer more, spread the ball around and make their offense really difficult to stop.

If that leads to more assists and fewer points, that would be good for Williamson too, but he still has to finish near the top of the league in scoring to have a chance at MVP.

But it’s going to take more than individual success to get Zion Williamson MVP votes.