Quote:
Originally Posted by Exothermic
If he weighs 272lbs in that photo then Zion Williamson is the best basketball prospect of all time because at age 18 he probably has atleast another 20lbs to add once he's in his prime & he already has good speed & hops. Like i said though, dude isn't anywhere near 272lbs or else we would be raving about him the same way people raved about Lebron & he would look soo much bigger.
He looks like he is sucking up his gut a bit in that picture (but not a lot). Jonathan Givony reported that Zion seemed to have poor conditioning at the USA Basketball camp where he weighed in at 272. After measuring him, Duke is listing him at 6'7", 285.
He looks like he has some tweener concerns when projecting him to the NBA. He doesn't have much length, which should make teams worried about his defensive potential when combined with his height. I think teams will also be concerned that he is the kind of guy who gains 30 pounds in the off-season and comes into training camp needing to shed weight. I would guess that his in-shape playing weight is closer to 250, but he will put on pounds easily if he is injured and has to sit unless he learns to eat more nutritionally sound.
His weight and multiple sources suggesting that he has a conditioning problem is why people aren't raving about him as much. If he weighed 240, then people would be raving about him more because it would be easier to project him as a guy who could guard both forwards spots.
He has a lot of upside, but for now he either needs to show that he can learn to make jump shots well enough to be a credible SF on offense or he needs to show that his height and length are not impediments to guarding bigger, longer PFs. If he can do both, he'll be a terror on the court.