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Thread: Zion!

  1. #21
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
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    Seattle
    Quote Originally Posted by elvis14 View Post
    Talking about Zion with a friend/fan he has brought up a point a few times: why don't we run more plays for Zion? We worked hard to set screens and get the the ball to JJ all game long, and with good reason. Now imagine if we did that for Zion. Set some screens for him off the ball and let him flash into the lane for a well timed pass. Give him more touches and watch him just destroy defenses more than he already does. We get him the ball enough but keep our offense fairly well balanced...but what if we unbalanced it for Zion the way we did for JJ? I'd love to see, I think it would be nasty and could take us to the next level. But, hey, that could just be 2 guys talkin'...

    On the specifics of this thread, I know this is DBR but we don't need to over think this, list criteria, question graduation or jersey retirements or any of that silly BS. Just enjoy Zion this year and in a couple of years we will know if he's our greatest player, he has a shot.
    Zion doesn't need plays run for him the way JJ did. JJ relied on others to help get him open. Zion creates many of his own opportunities, through 1v1 plays or second chance points.

    When we need a bucket, we often do run a set designed to get Zion the ball on the block. It just hasn't needed to happen much this season.

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    New York, NY
    Zion and Elton’s big shouldered moves to the basket. Kyrie’s cross over. JJ curling around multiple screens for a long three pointer. Grant’s grace. Battier and Billy King changing games by frustrating opponents. Hurley whipping a long pass cross court, converting fan’s “oh no’s” into cheers. In each case, these great moments didn’t rely on the team’s overall success—though that helped. Laettner was probably our greatest player, but it was cumulative and related to team success. His individual plays were clutch and program transforming, but they weren’t (imho) as “great” physically as what we’re seeing from Zion or what we’ve seen from a small number of guys over the years.

  3. #23
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    Feb 2008
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    Lewisville, NC
    I've watched Duke basketball for over 50 years (the only disclaimer here being not seeing Heyman and Mullins except briefly on TV), and I already consider Zion one of the all-time greats. The enjoyable task remaining is to watch him play for the rest of the year and see just where he ranks in the pantheon.

  4. #24
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
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    Rent free in tarheels’ heads
    Quote Originally Posted by johnb View Post
    Zion and Elton’s big shouldered moves to the basket. Kyrie’s cross over. JJ curling around multiple screens for a long three pointer. Grant’s grace. Battier and Billy King changing games by frustrating opponents. Hurley whipping a long pass cross court, converting fan’s “oh no’s” into cheers. In each case, these great moments didn’t rely on the team’s overall success—though that helped. Laettner was probably our greatest player, but it was cumulative and related to team success. His individual plays were clutch and program transforming, but they weren’t (imho) as “great” physically as what we’re seeing from Zion or what we’ve seen from a small number of guys over the years.
    How lucky are we to even get to have this discussion/debate?
    “Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Mechanicsburg, PA
    After seeing Zion play a couple of games I started thinking about most exciting Duke players- the kind where you are on the edge of your seat when they get the ball. My list before Zion was:

    Kyrie
    Bagley
    Jason Williams
    Jabari
    Maggette

    Zion is #1 now and would only trail Kyrie if he’d played a full season.

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    The Beach

    Best One & Done???

    Given that he is only going to be at Duke for one year, I can't say Zion would be the best player to ever play at Duke.

    In my eyes, to be the best player I'd need more than one season. He'd need to leave up to the standard set by Christian Laettner... Multiple time consensus All-American, Wooden & Nasmith Awards, ACC POY, NCAA Tourney MOP and most importantly back to back titles. Zion can deliver on a few of these things this year but it won't make him the GOAT at Duke.

    However, he can be the best one and done and certainly be a top 5 player to come through Duke. I personally think Laettner is the gold standard due to what he accomplished as a player and most importantly with his team.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    A Senior Grant Hill would be my suggested competition for Freshman Zion. Grant could do everything well as a senior, including be the team's PG, and was a two-way monster.

    Caveat: we do need to see what the second half of Zion's season looks like.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Rosenrosen View Post
    How lucky are we to even get to have this discussion/debate?
    Wouldn't be possible without the NBA's OAD rule :-)

    Quote Originally Posted by elvis14 View Post
    Talking about Zion with a friend/fan he has brought up a point a few times: why don't we run more plays for Zion? We worked hard to set screens and get the the ball to JJ all game long, and with good reason. Now imagine if we did that for Zion. Set some screens for him off the ball and let him flash into the lane for a well timed pass. Give him more touches and watch him just destroy defenses more than he already does. We get him the ball enough but keep our offense fairly well balanced...but what if we unbalanced it for Zion the way we did for JJ? I'd love to see, I think it would be nasty and could take us to the next level. But, hey, that could just be 2 guys talkin'...
    JJ had completely changed his body by the time he was an upperclassman and could handle that workload.

    Remember, typically when a freshman comes in weighing what Zion weighs, we worry about conditioning and how many minutes he can play. It's already special that Zion can play as much as he does with the workload that he has (among many special things that he does.)

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Boston, MA
    Quote Originally Posted by BeachBlueDevil View Post
    Given that he is only going to be at Duke for one year, I can't say Zion would be the best player to ever play at Duke.

    In my eyes, to be the best player I'd need more than one season. He'd need to leave up to the standard set by Christian Laettner... Multiple time consensus All-American, Wooden & Nasmith Awards, ACC POY, NCAA Tourney MOP and most importantly back to back titles. Zion can deliver on a few of these things this year but it won't make him the GOAT at Duke.

    However, he can be the best one and done and certainly be a top 5 player to come through Duke. I personally think Laettner is the gold standard due to what he accomplished as a player and most importantly with his team.
    By advanced metrics, he's the best freshman. His PER is absolutely ridiculous. Duke has had some great ones, but I think it's fair to say that, on the court, Zion has absolutely destroyed them. To put this in perspective, Zion's PER is currently 42.4. Jah Okafor's was 30.7. Kyrie? 32.5. Bagley? 30.6. Basically, Zion's PER is ~30% higher than the next best Duke freshman (Kyrie).

    In terms of best overall, I just can't give it to an OAD (or even a 2-and-Through). Not enough time to secure countless awards, NCAA wins, and championships. To me, even though he was before my time, Laettner still takes the cake. And that's a bar that will likely never be surpassed.
    Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill

    President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by luburch View Post
    Zion doesn't need plays run for him the way JJ did. JJ relied on others to help get him open. Zion creates many of his own opportunities, through 1v1 plays or second chance points.

    When we need a bucket, we often do run a set designed to get Zion the ball on the block. It just hasn't needed to happen much this season.
    Obviously we don't have to run plays for Zion. It's just that we should run more plays for Zion and get him some easy baskets and easy catches in the paint. Off the ball screens, with him would be crushing. If you don't switch, you're late and he's scoring. If you start switching, we set a pick so that a smaller player has to D Zion, and he's scoring. He's scoring well right now. I'm just pointing out that we could run more through him and just demoralize teams.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by roywhite View Post
    I've watched Duke basketball for over 50 years (the only disclaimer here being not seeing Heyman and Mullins except briefly on TV), and I already consider Zion one of the all-time greats. The enjoyable task remaining is to watch him play for the rest of the year and see just where he ranks in the pantheon.
    Well, I maybe have you watching Duke BB by a couple of years, but I agree with your sentiment. By the way, did you play for the Yankees back in the 70's? Starting in the 60's, it was Duke, NYY, and the Green Bay Packers for me.

  11. #31
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    Oct 2009
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    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by Troublemaker View Post
    A Senior Grant Hill would be my suggested competition for Freshman Zion. Grant could do everything well as a senior, including be the team's PG, and was a two-way monster.
    I know you're not trying to say that Zion ISN'T this, but I think it's worth it to point out that right now Zion is easily the leading candidate for POY, and is on the national DPOY mid season list (while tre is not...which is idiotic...), and while I don't think the writers would give him both because that's just how they think, he's about as 2-way a monster as you can get.

    Given Zion's handles and decision making, I have no doubt he could be a PG given a couple years. The fact that we're comparing him to SENIOR grant speaks a lot.
    1200. DDMF.

  12. #32
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    North of Durham
    I overlapped with Grant Hill at Duke and I think he is a lot more comparable to RJ than Zion. Grant was an incredible player to watch - so smooth and seemingly effortless. He would often make truly incredible plays (such as "the alley-oop") but he didn't have the wow factor that Zion has - you would just look up at the end of the game and realize what an excellent game he had had, and you could always count on him in the clutch. I think RJ is quite similar, though his defense isn't near where Grant's was. RJ makes his highlight reel plays but overall he blends in more.

    Zion is much more bright lights than Grant was. This doesn't make him better or worse, just different. I am just amazed at how he manages to handle it all in such a calm, humble manner at age 18/19.

  13. #33
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    New York, NY
    I don't think I've ever seen anything like Zion at any level of basketball. Granted, it's all relative. But Zion relative to his competition, at this level, a very advanced level of basketball, is truly otherworldly.

    I'm not going to debate strongly on the topic. But I will state my opinion. To me, Zion Williamson, assuming he finishes out the season at or above his current level, is the best basketball player that has ever worn a Duke uniform. If you want to talk about Duke careers, Duke legacies, Duke graduates, sure Zion won't qualify. But in terms of players that have stepped onto the court, I've never seen anything like Zion.

    That play last night where he defended the ND point guard at the three point line, denied him two or three separate times on attempted drives only to force him to try a step back long 2 (!) that he emphatically rejected was one of the most incredible sequences I've ever watched in college. And I say that about a defensive sequence! And I also say "one of the most incredible" because there are so many other incredible Zion sequences that compete with it. The Kentucky block/grab into a fast break threaded assist was another. Or the block where Zion looked like he cleared a 50" vertical (forget which game). Heck, there were two or three other sequences in yesterday's ND game that left me speechless.

    I understand my words in this post are strong. And I intend them to be so. I have never seen a human do the things that Zion does, as efficiently as Zion does, as beautifully as Zion does, as (usually) under control as Zion does. Maybe Lebron would have looked like this if he played in college, but we'll never know.

    This is what people mean when they say going to college is the desirable route for high school basketball talent. Zion would be foolish to do as Scottie Pippen said and sit out the rest of the season. Every single time he steps on the court, a new place gets to witness this. He is creating countless fans/observers/stargazers. He is must-watch action. Opposing gyms ooh and aah at his plays when they're not even rooting for him - it's blatantly obvious on TV.

    Zion is staggering. He is absolutely incredible. Words truly fail me.

    - Chillin

  14. #34
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    MKE
    So who's had the single best season for Duke?

    We've had seven Naismith winners: Dawkins, Ferry, Laettner, Brand, Battier, Williams, and Redick. (This leaves out Hill; Glenn Robinson won in '94.)

    Only two of the above seasons ended in national championships: Laettner and Battier. Both, of course, were seniors.

    Assuming Zion is a frontrunner for NPOY, and Duke is a frontrunner for the national title, he could be joining a short list. But a lot has to go right first.

  15. #35
    Zion is having an all time great season by both the eye test and advanced numbers, so his season is definitely in the conversation. It's tough to compare a player's performance in college basketball now against seasons where players were competing with future NBA stars who stayed as juniors and seniors in college - Zion doesn't have to compete against any of those, so the degree of difficulty probably isn't as high. But he also seems to have come in at a whole other level than any freshman did during previous eras, such that he could dominate any era and would already be a star in NBA competition as well absent OAD.

  16. #36
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    I had no idea that a thread about this would start up around the same time I was talking on the podcast about this very thing. I must say, I feel somewhat relieved to know that there are others who agree with me that Zion's season is putting him up there among the true legends in Duke history.

    First of all, I will say I agree with the folks who say jersey retirement and a bunch of stuff is out of reach for Zion because he will only be here for one season. But, when I think about the team I would put together that would be the best team of Dukies I could put on the floor, Zion is threatening to blast down the door and be on that team. Up until now, for me that team has been:

    PG- JWill
    SG- JJ
    SF- Grant
    PF- Shane
    C- Christian

    I am beginning to wonder if Zion forces his way onto that team ahead of Shane... I'm not there yet, but I am getting closer with every game.

    The truly stunning thing about Zion, the thing I did not anticipate at all from him, is his agility and quickness on defense. Others have noted the play last night where ND PG Prentiss Hubb (a kid having a heck of a game) could do nothing to shake Zion. In Zion we have a guy who can bottle up a lightning quick PG on one play and bang with a 6-10, 250 pound John Mooney the next... and he can block both their shots in humiliating fashion. With all due respect to Shane, Billy King, and other great defensive forwards at Duke, I'm not sure we've ever seen anyone else who could do that.

    I'm sure I am just punch drunk on what I have seen from Zion and am suffering from major league recency bias... but, dayum, he sure seems like he is just playing a different game than everyone else, doesn't it?

    -Jason "It is a fun time to be podding" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  17. #37
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Boston, MA
    Quote Originally Posted by devilish View Post
    Watching JJ in person his throughout most of his career, but especially his senior year, was one of the greatest basketball experiences I have ever had. I used to focus my attention on him regardless of where the ball was and it was almost exhausting as a spectator. All the sprinting back and forth and fighting through screens. It still amazes me he had the energy to get his shots off. Every time he touched the ball you could feel the excitement.

    Now with Zion, Cameron has that same buzz of excitement, just in a different way. Instead of “is he going to sink another?” It’s the anticipation of “what is he going to do next?”

    Simply amazing. If you get a chance to see it in person, you won’t be disappointed.
    I think this is what separates Zion from every other Duke great.

    JJ had the shot. Kyrie had the handle. JWill had the bulldog/speed combo. Bagley had the 2nd jump. But you kinda knew what was coming.

    With Zion, every possession is an adventure (in a good way. Not a Goldwire "adventure"). He could spin for a layup. He could drive the ball hard but nimble. He could take a mid-range jump shot. He could come out of nowhere to grab an offensive rebound and score on a putback. He could pickpocket Tre's man. He could rise up high for a block. And, of course, he could dunk the ball in a fashion that would make Wilkins blush.

    Zion is the most exciting college basketball player I've ever seen. I hate the OAD rule, but I'm sure glad it's in place today because we get to watch Zion (and to think I thought Zion would be a bust...what the hell was I thinking).
    Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill

    President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club

  18. #38
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Baltimore
    On the topic of Zion, but not on the topic of greatest player etc...his dunk in pregame warmups at ND my buddy filmed while at the game

    https://mobile.twitter.com/IUraizee3...052277760?s=19
    Duke '03
    Tent 1 '99/'00

  19. #39
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    Jun 2008
    Location
    Winston Salem, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    I had no idea that a thread about this would start up around the same time I was talking on the podcast about this very thing. I must say, I feel somewhat relieved to know that there are others who agree with me that Zion's season is putting him up there among the true legends in Duke history.

    First of all, I will say I agree with the folks who say jersey retirement and a bunch of stuff is out of reach for Zion because he will only be here for one season. But, when I think about the team I would put together that would be the best team of Dukies I could put on the floor, Zion is threatening to blast down the door and be on that team. Up until now, for me that team has been:

    PG- JWill
    SG- JJ
    SF- Grant
    PF- Shane
    C- Christian

    I am beginning to wonder if Zion forces his way onto that team ahead of Shane... I'm not there yet, but I am getting closer with every game.

    The truly stunning thing about Zion, the thing I did not anticipate at all from him, is his agility and quickness on defense. Others have noted the play last night where ND PG Prentiss Hubb (a kid having a heck of a game) could do nothing to shake Zion. In Zion we have a guy who can bottle up a lightning quick PG on one play and bang with a 6-10, 250 pound John Mooney the next... and he can block both their shots in humiliating fashion. With all due respect to Shane, Billy King, and other great defensive forwards at Duke, I'm not sure we've ever seen anyone else who could do that.

    I'm sure I am just punch drunk on what I have seen from Zion and am suffering from major league recency bias... but, dayum, he sure seems like he is just playing a different game than everyone else, doesn't it?

    -Jason "It is a fun time to be podding" Evans
    I just posted on the game thread about Zion covering for his teammates when beaten by their man. How he comes from no where and block a shot. Shane could do that to a degree but he couldn't cover that much ground. I don't think I've seen any Duke player that can cover that much ground. Yeh, and Billy was a great defender but he did it a different way. I'm in awe of one Mr. Zion Williamson. GoDuke!

  20. #40
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    Dallas, TX
    I have no problem putting Zion on my personal Mt. Rushmore of Duke players already.

    That would be Grant Hill, Jason Williams, Zion Williamson, and Kyrie Irving.

    Obviously not considering total college career. This is a talent-based Mt. Rushmore.

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