New Orleans Pelicans: First look at Zion Williamson in SVG’s offense

The New Orleans Pelicans hope SVG can unlock Zion Williamson’s superstar abilities. There certainly were encouraging results in their first preseason game.

Stan Van Gundy is supposed to help fix a lot of things as the new head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, defense, paint protection and turnovers among them. No single element to the game of basketball, however, is more important to New Orleans’ future than the development of Zion Williamson.

Zion looked the part of franchise-altering No. 1 overall pick in the 24 games he appeared in last season, averaging 22.5 points on 58.3 percent shooting in just 27.8 minutes a game. Yet as is the case with every young player, he had what to work on over the offseason while the Pelicans got to theorize how best to use one of the most physically gifted players the NBA has ever seen.

Given his hulking frame most seven-footers can’t even hang with, the post up seems like a viable option for Williamson, which is why he was one of the play’s most frequent users last season.

But Zion isn’t just a slab of overpowering mass. Few players in league history can match size that comes along with incredible athleticism, quickness and agility. Get him barrelling towards the basket on a drive and he’s nearly unstoppable.

On significant volume, Williamson generated less than one point per post up, ranking in the 51st percentile as a rookie. He registered fewer drives per game than sharpshooters like Buddy Hield and Tyler Herro. As pointed out by The Athletic’s William Guillory, that was a script Van Gundy would be tasked with flipping beginning in the preseason opener against the Miami Heat.

New Orleans lacks the shooters to have Zion emulate the battering ram style undertaken by Giannis Antetokounmpo. Van Gundy must devise sets that bend defenses out of place just enough to open cracks Williamson can exploit.

In the play below, Lonzo Ball passes to and screens for Nickeil Alexander-Walker on the left wing, who then dribbles towards the top of the 3-point line for a handoff with Zion. Avery Bradley communicates well on the switch, but NAW’s left-to-right movement has Bradley leaning left by the time he hands it to Williamson going right, who already built up a head of steam before he touched the ball.

It’s not likely a coincidence that the set up for Williamson’s hand-off involved Miami’s two smallest players. Even if the two Heat guards can get in a proper position to wall off Zion, they can only withstand so much punishment before he bursts through.

By trying to back his way towards the basket, Zion essentially cuts off his vision to the weak side of the court. Considering the abundance of doubles defenses will throw at him from all angles, that’s a problem.

He must be able to survey the entirety of the floor and pick out the open man, which he can’t do with his back to the basket.

On this play, Zion enters into post position with Bradley on his back and Meyers Leonard right behind the 6’2” guard to provide assistance. Zion doesn’t just know he has to get away from the defender but also that there is an open man somewhere on the weak side. He just has to adjust himself to find it.

Spinning right to angle his frame towards the middle of the floor, Williamson, having attracted three defenders along with Herro, can see where his four teammates are located. He spots Alexander-Walker in the left corner and fires a bullet for a wide-open 3-point look.

When facing up from either wing, Zion’s explosiveness hurdling towards the basket forces defenses to immediately commit a second defender, typically the big guarding the dunker spot, in an attempt to prevent a finish at the rim. Of course, bringing that help frees the offensive big right beneath the basket for a potential dump off or the chance to snag offensive rebounds.

These plentiful opportunities are in stark contrast to the limited outcomes of a post up. The prodding nature of the play keeps the on-ball defender in front, allowing the helping big to straddle between the ball and his man, committing only to the one who demands the attention.

Explode past the on-ball defender, however, and the help man is forced to abandon his assignment. Zion misses a contested layup, but the attention he draws opens the door for Steven Adams to clean up the miss in one motion.

Zion and Adams executed a high-low lob in the third quarter with the former fronting the post on the right block and the latter executing the pass from the high post.

Though completely irrelevant in the discussion of post-ups vs. face-ups, this two-man game should be a favorite go-to for Van Gundy. Not necessarily to exploit Adams’ passing abilities — though he did average a career-high 2.3 assists per game last season — but because of Williamson’s incredible catch radius that can likely snag even the most errant of passes.

Swap Ball for JJ Redick in the left corner and the defender, Kendrick Nunn in this case, probably won’t even feel comfortable trying to break up the lob if it means abandoning one of the NBA’s top 3-point snipers.

Williamson attempted 13 field goals in his first taste of the new season. All were well within the painted area. More importantly, 10 of them were categorized as either “driving” or “cutting” layups.

Most superstars — or superstars in the making — don’t need specific sets or schemes to fill up individual box scores. We saw that in Zion’s limited rookie action. But to maximize all the unique talent at their disposal, it is the job of the coach to create scenarios that offer those chances.

Giannis and Stephen Curry became All-Stars while coached by Jason Kidd and Mark Jackson. It wasn’t until Mike Budenholzer and Steve Kerr implemented their sets when two of the game’s best blossomed into MVPs.

If the win against Miami offered any indication, Van Gundy seems to have the right mindset to put his young phenom on that track.