Is this version of Zion enough to make the Pelicans contenders?

All players must eventually confront the realities of aging, adapt their games, and hone new skills in order to extend their primes. They aren’t ordinarily forced to do that at 23 years old, but then again, nothing about Zion Williamson’s game or body has ever been ordinary.

Make no mistake, Williamson remains an outlier athlete even by NBA standards; he still regularly displays feats of short-area acceleration, vertical explosiveness, and aerial body control that most players can only dream of. But those moments aren’t happening with the same night-to-night consistency, and he hasn’t shown quite the same bounce or straight-line burst he did in past seasons. Maybe that’s because his list of lower-body injuries has caught up to him, or maybe it’s because he’s deliberately adopted a lower-impact style in an attempt to avoid another one. It’s worth noting he’s played in 36 of New Orleans’ 44 games, which is already his second-highest total in any season. (Knocks on wood until knuckles bleed.)

Whether or not the downshift is by design, Williamson is scoring and rebounding less than ever, and getting to the rim and free-throw line at career-low rates. (He still gets to the basket a ton, but a sizeable chunk of those shots have moved back into floater range.) He’s finishing fewer possessions in transition than ever, converting drives and isos into points less efficiently than he has since his abbreviated (and pandemic-interrupted) rookie season, and dunking about half as frequently as he did when he entered the league.

In spite of that, the Pelicans are as good as they’ve been at any point in the Zion era, with top-10 ratings on both sides of the ball and a plus-5.2 net rating that ranks seventh in the league. In the six weeks since their embarrassing loss to the Lakers in the In-Season Tournament semifinals, they’re top five on both ends and rank first in net rating. Their profile is one of a fringe contender, at worst.

Their success owes plenty to Brandon Ingram’s improved playmaking, CJ McCollum’s redoubled commitment to off-ball creation and 3-point bombing, Herb Jones’ increasingly stifling defense and potent play finishing, Trey Murphy’s 30-foot range and all-around growth, Jonas Valanciunas’ interior mashing, and the team’s remarkable depth. It arguably owes even more to Williamson’s availability, and the refinements he’s made in the face of some apparent physical diminishment.

Williamson’s unparalleled combination of heft, speed, and leaping ability can at times overshadow the breadth of his softer skills: his crafty handle, passing chops, footwork, magnetic touch around the basket, and overall feel for the game. When he isn’t blowing up defensive shells with sheer kinetic force, those skills get to shine through a bit more. There’s still a ton of power in his game but at this point, it’s almost equal parts finesse. He skitters around defenders more often than he barrels through them.

He excels at slicing through tight spaces and finishing in creative ways: odd angles, high off the window, inside hand, on the way down after taking a bump. He’s quite good at shifting gears with a live dribble, which is no small feat considering that doing so means getting a 285-pound locomotive to slow down and speed up on a whim. Not many players, no matter what size, can accelerate into a multi-crossover move, jump-stop at the dotted line, then immediately spring back up and glide between two defenders to the front of the rim. Witness:

Defenses still honor Williamson as a downhill attacker, and do everything they can to prevent him from gathering a head of steam. He sees aggressive nail help almost every time he comes off a screen or a handoff looking to turn the corner. And he’s leveled up as a passer in response so that even when he struggles to generate his own points against defenses that shrink his driving lanes, he can still be the engine of efficient team offense. His assist rate is the highest of his career.

He’s become more proactive about spitting the ball out and putting the opposition in rotation when he sees that help sliding over, either with his face or his back to the basket:

While he doesn’t always have pristine spacing around him, it’s miles better than what he’s had to work with in the past. The Pelicans remain a bottom-five team in terms of 3-point attempt rate (as they’ve been for each of the last four years), but they’re 20th since Murphy returned from injury in early December and 11th since the start of January. They’ve gotten up at least 40 attempts in three straight games. And on top of that, they’re up to third in 3-point accuracy after finishing 27th, 26th, and 15th in the last three seasons. Suddenly, Williamson has a wealth of shooting threats to run inverted ball-screen actions with.

Ingram isn’t the most enthusiastic off-ball mover and has never put up threes at a particularly high rate (one reason the fit between the two stars isn’t as symbiotic as you’d hope), but Murphy and McCollum are deadly off the catch, both as shooters and closeout attackers. The addition of movement-shooting, microwave-scoring rookie Jordan Hawkins has also helped. Ditto for long-range specialist Matt Ryan, if he can ever get back on the court. Even typically shaky shooters like Jones, Naji Marshall, and Jose Alvarado have buried at least 39% of their triples this year.

While the Pelicans’ overall volume is low, they rank 10th in the league in “wide-open” threes created per game. More than anything, that’s a credit to Williamson’s on-ball gravity, and his improved ability to leverage it.

At the same time, there have been many nights this season when Williamson drifts and disengages from the offense, lacks that second-jump pop, and doesn’t seem capable of taking over or putting his stamp on a game. And some of those cracks have crept into the usual pillars of the Pelicans’ offensive success.

Before he got injured and eventually shut down last season, the team ranked first in rim frequency, third in free-throw attempt rate, eighth in offensive rebound rate, and ninth in points added via transition plays. They’ve trended down in each of those categories this season (to seventh, sixth, 11th, and 14th, respectively) and apart from rim frequency – where Williamson continues to have an enormous impact – they’ve been even worse in those areas when he’s been on the floor.

For all Zion’s aforementioned skill development, he’s still a complete non-shooter who still hasn’t shown any ability to finish with his right hand, which can get him into trouble when defenses overplay his left.

New Orleans’ offensive rating in his on-court minutes is 115.1, which would’ve been an elite figure a couple of years ago but is now the league median in this inflated scoring environment. It’s also down from 116.2 last season, despite how much better the team is shooting the ball. Even with Williamson, Ingram, and McCollum on the floor together, that number is just 114.5. The Pelicans have scored quite a bit more efficiently with Williamson on the bench, a dramatic departure from previous seasons.

Even when they try opening up the court by sliding him up to the five, he isn’t feasting the way you’d expect. Zion-at-center lineups have been outscored this season, mainly because they can’t score. (Turns out Valanciunas is pretty helpful.) New Orleans has posted excellent defensive numbers in those minutes, but that’s because opponents have hit just 24% of their threes, including 18% from the corners, which obscures the extent to which they’ve demolished the Pelicans at the rim and on the glass. Going small doesn’t feel like a viable option against good teams.

This may all seem like nitpicking when the player in question is averaging roughly 22 points, six rebounds, and five assists on 62% true shooting, but the expectations are greater for a guy who at times looked capable of being one of the five best offensive players in the world. And the bar for Williamson’s offense is always going to be extremely high to compensate for his problematic defense.

There are certain things he does well on that side of the ball, and certain games in which his energy and activity level make him a legitimate plus. He’s made meaningful strides as a low man and overall team defender over the last couple of years. He’s never going to be an elite rim-protector, but simply being in the right place at the right time goes a long way when you’re as wide and strong as Williamson is.

Unfortunately, New Orleans hasn’t really found a coverage that works for him in ball-screen action, and opponents target him a lot. He doesn’t have the length or spatial awareness to succeed in drop and he’s food for quick guards on switches.

So the Pelicans usually opt to have him hedge and recover, to keep him out of those switches. Just one problem: Zion also might be the single worst hedge defender in the NBA. Opponents turn the corner on him constantly, and even when he manages to contain the ball with a hard show, he often either recovers too slowly or fails to anticipate the ensuing chain of rotations and recovers to the wrong spot.

It’s amazing how someone who’s so explosive moving north-south can be so immobile horizontally.

Ordinarily, you’d assume a 23-year-old would continue on an upward trajectory and eventually iron out the kinks, but that’s a questionable assumption given Williamson’s injury history. His skill and feel refinements should continue apace, but there’s a good chance his physical peak has already passed him by. And the aging curve tends to be less kind to players who don’t have a jump shot to fall back on.

The good news is the Pelicans have never been more optimally built around Williamson (how many teams can boast a plus-8 net rating when their best player is on the bench?), and they look capable of contending right now (even though they probably won’t send a single player to the All-Star Game). Williamson’s production may remain a mixed bag, and he may never be the generational force of nature he looked capable of becoming when he entered the league, but this version of him is good enough to keep New Orleans in that conversation … as long as he can stay on the floor.

Now let’s all knock on wood one more time.