New Orleans Pelicans: What’s good, what’s not after 10 games
The good and bad for Zion Williamson
The good
Zion Williamson is healthy, playing well, improving defensively and logging 32 minutes per game, which are all good signs for the New Orleans Pelicans early in the season.
He is clearly still adjusting and getting his rhythm, so I think we can expect his 23 points per game to go up along with his efficiency as he starts making some of the easy ones he’s missed so far this season.
The Pelicans need more of these 3 things. light. Related Story
Zion is also still adjusting to Willie Green’s style of offense which has far less iso and far more ball movement than what he was used to with Stan Van Gundy. Coach Green is still learning how to utilize Zion, so the scary thing for the league is that he isn’t even close to peak form yet in either his performance, nor how the Pelicans are going to use him.
The bad
Zion is shooting a very mortal 53.9 percent from the field, which is the lowest of his career. Like I said, he’s missed some bunnies early on that will eventually start to fall as he gets fully back into the swing of things and builds more chemistry with his teammates.
Zion is not getting to the line as much, as he has only shot 5.8 free throws per game, down from 8.7 in his last full season in the league. Part of this is because the Pels’ offense is not so reliant on him plowing through four defenders, so if it is saving some of the hard fouls, that’s fine with me.
But it would be nice if he’d hit a higher percentage of the ones he does get, as Zion is only making 67.4 percent of his free throws, so he’s leaving points on the table.