Zion through 100
A few interesting articles out there (ESPN, the Athletic) on Zion’s comparables through his first 100 games. There are some reasonable caveats, the main one being that because his first 100 games have been spread out over four seasons, his body and game has been able to mature in a way that benefits his numbers in contrast to someone like Jayson Tatum who apparently played 93 games in his first season.
Having said that …. damn …
Williamson is averaging 25.2 points on 60% shooting for his career. No player to debut in the shot-clock era has ever averaged those numbers through his first 100 career games. In fact, the only players with those numbers over any 100-game span in the shot-clock era are Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin McHale and Wilt Chamberlain.
Williamson (2,524) is the 12th player in NBA history with 2,500 points in his first 100 career games. He's the first player since Michael Jordan to accomplish the feat. The others to pull it off: Chamberlain, Walt Bellamy, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Mikan, Rick Barry, Elvin Hayes, Elgin Baylor, David Thompson and Billy Knight. (Thompson and Knight played in the ABA prior to their NBA debuts.) All players except for Knight are in the Hall of Fame.
The tale of the tape is really told in this histogram though.
Zion’s first 100 summarized by DARKO.
As we all know, his ability to score is other-worldly, particularly his ability to get to the rim and make all kinds of crazy shots from strange angles. Despite the fame of “Point Zion” his passing is still not widely appreciated. As described over at Basketball Reference, “Assist percentage [AST%] is an estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while he was on the floor.” Top ten percent in that category while scoring 20 to 30 points a night is no joke.
But that defense … oh my …
There is a hint of promise on that end though. Here is a look at the progression of his overall, offensive, and defensive DPM (a statistic that uses both boxscore counts and real plus-minus data).
That offensive regression is just acclimating to game speed and finding his way along multiple potent scorers for the first time in his career. Defensively though, if he can even just get to average, he can push the Pels from 50 wins to 60, with deep runs in the playoffs every year.
Here’s to hoping!
