Zion Williamson cannot be expected to play center for the New Orleans Pelicans

With the 2024-25 NBA season fast approaching, it appears that the New Orleans Pelicans will be entering the upcoming campaign with a few glaring question marks surrounding their roster. There are plenty of needs across the board, including more playmaking, depth, and shooting, but the most pressing concern is their complete lack of reliable centers.

As currently constructed, the Pelicans have three viable centers on their roster: German veteran journeyman Daniel Theis, true rookie out of Baylor Yves Missi, and a former second-round pick turned free agent Karlo Matkovic. These options range from unexciting to unproven, none of which presenting as a legitimate starter for a team with championship aspirations.

Many have surmised that New Orleans has to have a plan beyond these three players for their center rotation. The most obvious answer would be for the Pellies to acquire a true anchor via trade, using their future draft capital or their bevy of desirable players to land a difference-maker in the middle.

Another solution would be for Head Coach Willie Green and the Pelicans to forego a starting center altogether, opting to play small-ball instead and use their committee of big men as specialists instead. With New Orleans's roster, if they were to go small, Zion Williamson would be the natural candidate to slide over and man the middle. That may have seemed like an enticing option in the past, but it's far from a recipe for success moving forward.

Zion Williamson playing center would be detrimental for both him and the Pelicans

There's some logic to plugging in Zion Williamson as the starting center for next season. He'd be an obvious mismatch for basically every opposing anchor to try to guard. Sliding him to center would allow Coach Green to play CJ McCollum, Dejounte Murray, Brandon Ingram, and Trey Murphy III or Herb Jones in the final starter slot, which would give New Orleans as much talent on the court as possible at the same time. And, as discussed, the Pelicans don't really have a surefire center to man the middle anyways.

Last season, Cleaning the Glass (subscription required) recorded that the Pelicans played 630 possessions with Zion as the center. In that time, New Orleans was a +10 per 100 possessions, with an absurd 117.9 offensive rating and a solid 107.9 defensive rating. If they could replicate those numbers with Zion playing center full-time, it'd be an easy choice for Coach Green, as the Pelicans would be among the best teams in the entire league with those results.

Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons why Zion shouldn't be expected to play center next year for New Orleans. Chiefly, asking an extremely injury prone superstar to play out of position, moving to a new role that would be much more physically demanding of him should be an idea that's dead on arrival. It's not certain that moving Zion to center would increase the likelihood of him getting hurt again, but the logic definitely suggests that it's a much riskier move for him and his health.

As a full-time center, he'd be tasked with controlling the paint on defense, dominating the glass, and switching out on opposing ball-handlers on screen actions constantly. On the other end of the court, he'd be matched up against the biggest player on the opposing team and would repeatedly bang against defending centers, even more so than he does already.

Although the numbers from last season suggest otherwise, deploying Zion as the full-time starting center would also be a defensive disaster for the Pelicans. To this point in his career, Zion has not been a great NBA defender. A lot of it has to do with his health, conditioning, and offensive workload, but asking him to suddenly become an excellent stopper after moving him to play up a position is a ludicrous proposition.

Last season, Zion was able to aptly man the middle for about nine possessions a game. That's hardly a guarantee that the Pelicans would be able to maintain that level of success with Zion suiting up at center full-time. He was also built a lot more like a center last year.

According to Zion himself and multiple photos and videos from the summer, the former heavyweight has significantly slimmed out this offseason. If it's true that he's below his playing weight in college, Zion simply won't have the bulk or size necessary to contain the centers of today's NBA. The Pelicans don't have any great options at center, but sticking Zion Williamson there could turn out to be a disaster.