Zion Williamson 21 Points/3 Dunks Full Highlights (1/26/2020)

Is it wrong of me to feel sad that Zion Williamson’s immediate impact on the Pelicans’ ability to win games will directly have a negative effect on the amount of minutes that Jahlil Okafor is going to receive going forward? Of course, I’m glad that Zion is beasting at the high level that everybody was expecting of him coming out of college, but the fact that he deserves at least 25 MPG per game right off the bat means that other big men on the Pelicans are going to see their minutes suffer.

Okafor was a DNP-CD this game. There just isn’t room to fit him in the rotation. Sure, Okafor is really only helpful to the winning cause if he’s having one his nights where he’s an unstoppable scoring force, but he’s had some good games recently that should have guaranteed him at least a few token minutes per game. And it’s not just Okafor. Nicolo Melli, who has shown some real promise as a stretch-five, got only seven minutes in this game. Jaxson Hayes got just ten minutes despite being one of the league’s best rookies (a title he now has to share with Williamson).

Basically, what I’m saying is, to have one highly-touted draft pick see success at the expense of another is kind of cruel. There’s no way to avoid it in this situation, but that doesn’t lessen the cruelty of the situation. Except, of course to trade Okafor to the Bucks in exchange for Thon Maker. I would jokingly suggest a Williamson trade to the Bucks, but it’s not funny to imply that a small market won’t be able to hold on to their transcendent superstar-in-the-making. I know exactly how not funny those jokes are.

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