Is it fair to call Zion a “bust”?

[bkkrh]

Is he a bust compared to Lebron James?
Yes


Is he a bust compared to the likes of Blake griffin?

Yes.



Is he a bust compare to the likes of the Candyman Olowokandi?


No definitely not.

So scientifically we have empirically converged to a more accurate answer and will continue to do so as science advances into the 21st century.

I think you can't even say that he is a bust compared to Blake Griffin. Blake averaged 3rd in MVP voting when he had 24.1 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.2 steals. That was pretty much an outlier season for him. He had 1 more year where he averaged 24 points. Blake has a lot of accomplishments, but he made All NBA 2nd team in a year he averaged 18 points and 8 rebounds, that's the exact same average Zion currently has after 4 games (with a horrible FGA of course).

I see Zion's 2nd season generally on a similar level as Blake in his prime. Zion scored more, Griffin got more rebounds. If he stays healthy a few seasons it's still pretty realistic that he ranks above Blake at the end of his career.

You can argue that Blake's teams had more success, but that started exactly the moment Chris Paul started playing for them.

[Godymas]

imagine if you called Steph Curry a bust at age 24, 0 All Star selections

Zion should have been All NBA last season, one of the most under radar great seasons for a guy.

His efficiency is a little slow out the gate this season, I don't care, to call him a bust is insane when his floor is an All Star

[rapz**7**]

Grant hill career trajectory

[ImSlower]

Use whatever term gets you semantic satisfaction, but it sounds like everyone here is saying the same thing. For his incredible potential through HS and jia time at Duke, everyone agreed "if this kid stays in shape and healthy he'll be a force for a decade".

Instead his obvious lack of interest in keeping his uniquely powerful body healthy and trim has severely affected his first six seasons. His team is a mess because they want to build around him but cannot weather his prolonged absences or constant injuries due to conditioning.

Bust, disappointment, failure, whatever strong word one prefers - Zions career has not been close to what we all hoped. And frankly I consider it his own fault.

[bkkrh]

If you bought a powerball million dollar lottery ticket and only got back 10,000 instead of the grand prize would you call your lottery ticket a bust? Because that makes about as much sense as calling Zion a bust

The Hornets didn't buy one ticket, they bought thousands of tickets and got 10 grand. That's the issue here. Draft position matters. If Zion was drafted 17th by Brooklyn in that draft, he wouldn't be a bust.

There is exactly 1 player in that draft with Ja Morant that until now had clearly a better career than him. You can make an argument for Darius Garland and RJ Barrett might be slowly getting there. I might also take Tyler Herro over him, just because he was less injured. So that puts him at worst at 5th. Which other 11 players from that draft would you pick over him?

[76Love]

I thought he would at least be Barkley or a tier above by now.

I’ve come to the conclusion that he will never be better than Barkley. He’s not a bust though.

[hardenASG13]

Yes I think it’s fair. He’s still a good player, but with his talent he should be a top 5 player at worst. His lack of hustle since being drafted is shocking.

Whats his talent though? He's good at driving and spinning in some ridiculous angle shots inside, but not sure why people ever thought that would lead him to being the top player in the league or anything. His playmaking has always been average, decent rebounder, and can score inside. That's not best player in the league stuff in the modern NBA. It's all star level, which is what he is.

He doesn’t need to be a super versatile player. He’s a walking mismatch in the paint, and if he played hard that would be enough. Zion could average 30 ppg on 60% shooting if he just kept in shape and hustled on the court.

The dude literally peaked at Duke.

If he were to play for Duke this season I think he'd be more dominant than he was at the time he was there. It's just guys in the NBA are all big and
strong too, so you need a little more to your game.

[Beethoven]

Is he a bust compared to Lebron James?
Yes


Is he a bust compared to the likes of Blake griffin?

Yes.



Is he a bust compare to the likes of the Candyman Olowokandi?


No definitely not.

So scientifically we have empirically converged to a more accurate answer and will continue to do so as science advances into the 21st century.

I think you can't even say that he is a bust compared to Blake Griffin. Blake averaged 3rd in MVP voting when he had 24.1 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.2 steals. That was pretty much an outlier season for him. He had 1 more year where he averaged 24 points. Blake has a lot of accomplishments, but he made All NBA 2nd team in a year he averaged 18 points and 8 rebounds, that's the exact same average Zion currently has after 4 games (with a horrible FGA of course).

I see Zion's 2nd season generally on a similar level as Blake in his prime. Zion scored more, Griffin got more rebounds. If he stays healthy a few seasons it's still pretty realistic that he ranks above Blake at the end of his career.

You can argue that Blake's teams had more success, but that started exactly the moment Chris Paul started playing for them.

I'm not disagreeing with you..
I was just trying to be facetious, for the sake of the thread

[Duke4life831]

Use whatever term gets you semantic satisfaction, but it sounds like everyone here is saying the same thing. For his incredible potential through HS and jia time at Duke, everyone agreed "if this kid stays in shape and healthy he'll be a force for a decade".

Instead his obvious lack of interest in keeping his uniquely powerful body healthy and trim has severely affected his first six seasons. His team is a mess because they want to build around him but cannot weather his prolonged absences or constant injuries due to conditioning.

Bust, disappointment, failure, whatever strong word one prefers - Zions career has not been close to what we all hoped. And frankly I consider it his own fault.

Yup and the last sentence is my biggest gripe with Zion. This isn’t a Greg Oden situation where basically no matter what, his body just gave out on him.

Zion has been very overweight for the majority of his career. We’ve seen teammates publicly say he’s a “distant teammate”. It was two seasons ago where he got hurt and the timeline kept getting pushed back, to the point where he was cleared by the medical staff, but couldn’t play because he wasn’t in game condition and didn’t play in the play in games. Then reports came out that the team didn’t feel like he was taking his rehab as seriously as he should.

Even if he stayed in the best shape possible would his body give out? Maybe with his size and style. But that hasn’t been the issue. For the majority of his career so far, he hasn’t been a professional off the court. And that’s all on him.

[Black star]

This is a silly thread.

If you bought a powerball million dollar lottery ticket and only got back 10,000 instead of the grand prize would you call your lottery ticket a bust? Because that makes about as much sense as calling Zion a bust

I wouldn’t view it like this. It would be more along the lines of

Say you bought a powerball million dollar ticket and you won the million dollars. But while they were transferring the money to your bank, there was an accounting error and you only received 10k and they told you there was no way of getting back the remaining 990k.

Sure it’s cool you still got 10k, but it’s still a major disappointment because you thought you were coming away with 1 mil.

A bust has virtually no value. Again, Zion has had an average to above average return for a number 1 pick and that is in no way a bust.

Look at it this way. Zion, Ayton, Fultz, Ben Simmons, Towns, Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, Davis, Irving, and Wall. Those are all the number 1 picks from the 2010s and even with hindsight most people are taking Zion 3rd or 4th off that list. If you're arguing that Zion is a bust then more than half of number 1 picks are busts which doesn't make sense.

[Edrees]

People were saying he would be better than lebron. Considering those lofty expectations, yes

This is a silly thread.

If you bought a powerball million dollar lottery ticket and only got back 10,000 instead of the grand prize would you call your lottery ticket a bust? Because that makes about as much sense as calling Zion a bust

I wouldn't call my lottery ticket a bust even if i won 0 dollars because i dont expect to every win anything. Bust is only used in situations where people are expecting results.

imagine if you called Steph Curry a bust at age 24, 0 All Star selections

Zion should have been All NBA last season, one of the most under radar great seasons for a guy.

His efficiency is a little slow out the gate this season, I don't care, to call him a bust is insane when his floor is an All Star

Curry won ROTY which zion did not do. He also carried a team to the playoffs as the clear cut best player by 24 and won a playoff series as the clear cut best player.

[SomeBunghole]

There is exactly 1 player in that draft with Ja Morant that until now had clearly a better career than him. You can make an argument for Darius Garland and RJ Barrett might be slowly getting there. I might also take Tyler Herro over him, just because he was less injured. So that puts him at worst at 5th. Which other 11 players from that draft would you pick over him?

Who's picking anyone over him? How many players are better than him in that draft has nothing to do with my argument or with whether someone is a bust. You can be the best player in a draft and still be a bust.

There are expectations that come with a draft position and expectations that come with the hype that followed you. If you fail to meet both, you're a bust. Zion was picked first. That's a spot where you should be looking to draft a franchise cornerstone, a generational player who will determine the course of your team's future. On top of that, Zion was anointed the greatest prospect since LeBron James a couple of years before the draft.

He has fallen well short of both of those expectations and it has zero to do with how good Morant or Herro or anyone is.

[MrGoat]

Didn't live up to his potential so far but Andrew Wiggins is right about the line where I'd consider labeling a hyped #1 pick a bust and Zion is better than Andrew Wiggins. Maybe a bit of a disappointment but not a bust

[Cavsfansince84]

I'd say no if he can stay in reasonably good shape and avoid any more major injuries moving forward but if he lapses on his weight again and things spiral from there he will be seen as a bust. He absolutely could and would have been a top 10 guy for many years had his weight been under control and he avoided any serious injuries.

[mpoo_sin]

His health leaves him disappointing, but he's a 2-time AS who has been averaging about 25/6/4 going into this season. Pair of seasons at 26+ ppg, too, albeit one at 29 GP.

Hard to look at him as a "bust" with that in mind. The performance is there... when he's on the court.

You rarely get an Allstar nod just on truly being one of the 20ish best players. I would say it is much more important to have some kind of hype arpund you.
So Williamsons Allstar nods came mostly because of the hype around him. He has maybe close to one full season of reallly playing at a star-level, not more.

I agree with some posters here: he is a huge disappointment, not neccessarily a bust.

[mpoo_sin]

He absolutely could and would have been a top 10 guy for many years had his weight been under control and he avoided any serious injuries.

Strong disagreement here. He never was even close to being a top10 player.
He peaked in Highschool. Everything after that is worse.

[tsherkin]

et an Allstar nod just on truly being one of the 20ish best players. I would say it is much more important to have some kind of hype arpund you.
So Williamsons Allstar nods came mostly because of the hype around him. He has maybe close to one full season of reallly playing at a star-level, not more.

That... isn't even close to accurate.

In his first AS season, he was a roughly 27/7/3.5 player who shot over 62% inside the arc and posted a +7.7% rTS (64.9% TS). He smashed down 123 dunks, many of which were huge posters.

There was nothing of ephemeral hype about him, he was a monster. He was a +6.1 OBPM guy, and was top 20 in O-EPM as well.

There isn't a substantive defense of the idea he didn't deserve his AS selection.

[Tacoma]

To me, it depends on how you define bust. Wikipedia says a bust is "a highly touted or highly selected draftee who does not meet expectations." Rotowire said, "bust is a term used to refer to a player who falls well short of expectations."

Bleacher Report said a bust must be a high pick that fails to live up to pre-draft expectations within 3 years of their selection, and they added that "perpetual injury problems can definitely contribute to a player being labeled as a bust."

There's not an official source but other media are of similar mindset that a bust is not about being an almost complete failure (e.g., Anthony Bennett), but rather the bar is about how he plays relative to draft expectations. That's the common definition.

Zion was hyped about as high as any player before him with comparisons to LeBron and Shaq. Expectations were super high. So far I think it's agreeable that, even when he plays, he's a good player but he's no LeBron or Shaq. Factor in he's perpetually injured & (up until last season) Zion has played in only 184 of 390 games or 47% of possible games and it's more clear.

I don't agree that his laziness re keeping this weight in check should the a factor here because this was a known issue at draft time. It should be strictly about results and factoring in everything, Zion has fallen well short of draft expectations. Thus by common definition of bust, he is a bust.

[Cavsfansince84]

Strong disagreement here. He never was even close to being a top10 player.
He peaked in Highschool. Everything after that is worse.

Well I think you are way off there. His second year in the league(2021), while playing in only 61 games he still finished 11th in win shares and 9th in vorp and he absolutely was getting talk of already being a top 15 player that year. I think he was without a doubt on his way to becoming a top 10 player in his 3rd season had he stayed in shape and healthy. Then he misses all of 2022 and comes back in 2023 still looking like a top 20 player in the 29 games he played. Defensively he's still a work in progress but that's much better if he'd actually stayed near 260lb rather than been playing at 280+ since 2021.

[Godymas]

People were saying he would be better than lebron. Considering those lofty expectations, yes

This is a silly thread.

If you bought a powerball million dollar lottery ticket and only got back 10,000 instead of the grand prize would you call your lottery ticket a bust? Because that makes about as much sense as calling Zion a bust

I wouldn't call my lottery ticket a bust even if i won 0 dollars because i dont expect to every win anything. Bust is only used in situations where people are expecting results.

imagine if you called Steph Curry a bust at age 24, 0 All Star selections

Zion should have been All NBA last season, one of the most under radar great seasons for a guy.

His efficiency is a little slow out the gate this season, I don't care, to call him a bust is insane when his floor is an All Star

Curry won ROTY which zion did not do. He also carried a team to the playoffs as the clear cut best player by 24 and won a playoff series as the clear cut best player.

Curry did not win ROTY

Zion is a 2x All Star