A recent knee injury to Zion Williamson the biggest name in basketball who is not currently playing in the NBA has got experts weighing in on his next move. Which in their opinion is that he needs to sit out the rest of his only year at Duke, yet he shouldn’t.
What an opportunity for Williamson to play for and learn from Mike Krzyzewski arguably one of the greatest coaches in NCAA history.
On Twitter though there’s been many polls asking if he needs to shut it down for the remainder of the year so he doesn’t risk any further injury. There is little doubt that Williamson is going to get taken with the first pick of the NBA draft.
Still the main reason for him to not come back to play again for Duke is for financial reasons. It’s the argument that college athletes need to get paid. Yet, according to a recent report Williamson stated regardless of the NBA’s one and done rule he’d still have gone to play college basketball.
The one and done rule has been a total failure by the NBA because it created an issue that wasn’t really one. Now there are way too many young players who have left school early have not found success. It’s the main reason the NBA Draft has been less than stellar.
Names like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Marquis Teague, Archie Goodwin, Nerlens Noel, Trey Lyles, Malik Monk, Bam Adebayo, Anthony Bennett, Frank Jackson, Harry Giles, Brandon Ingram, Justise Winslow, Tyus Jones, Marquese Chriss, Stanley Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Noah Vonleh, and Ben McLemore.
Even the ones who have found tremendous success have flaws. One of the most glaring examples of this is Philadelphia 76ers Ben Simmons. He struggles with shooting the basketball, he’s 0-14 from the three-point line for his career, shoots 57.1 percent from the free throw line, from 10-16 feet he shoots 29.9 percent and from 16 feet to the three-point line 29.3 percent.
For Williamson, even though he’s gifted with incredible athleticism developing the footwork down in the post is going to become key for his success in the NBA. What better way to do that by playing 28 minutes a night and developing those skills and not sitting on the bench in foul trouble at the NBA level.
No NBA team is going to send the first overall pick to the G-League to develop their skills, and unfortunately for Williamson, no matter what he does he’s going to draw media attention. For him though, it’s best once he’s recovered fully from the injury is to play again.