10 Things You Didn't Know About Zion Williamson

Xion Williamson is the first pick of the 2019 NBA Draft and one of the most hight players of this millennium behind only LeBron James if he stays healthy Diane is on his way to becoming one of the best players in the NBA and one of the biggest sports superstars on the planet here are 10 things you still might not know about Zion [Music] Zion was offered a football scholarship to play at LSU if you saw Zion in person and didn't know who he was you probably think he was a football player because of the way he's built six-six 285 pounds of thick brute force Zion could probably dominate his both offensive and defensive linemen it's not a surprise that football programs in the country were proven to find out if this basketball thing was working out LSU went the farthest and offered a scholarship to play with them stating he was the best high school tight end they'd ever seen even though they only saw him on the basketball court Zions high school didn't even have a football team so he was almost destined to become a basketball player considering he wasn't very tall as a freshman he could have easily started playing football instead who knows he might have been the first draft pick in the NFL LeBron couldn't even get into the gym to watch Zion play in high school LeBron and Zion first met in February of 2020 the first time the pelicans and Lakers played each other this year that surprised a lot of people considering LeBron has relationships with many players during their high school and college days as many of them go through his camp or they meet at various events it was especially strange considering Zion was the highest profile high school player since LeBron himself the one time they probably could have met LeBron was denied entrance to the gym where Zion was playing an AAU game against lamellar ball yep you heard it correctly the biggest star in basketball was shut down and denied an entrance to a high school game the reason for it is that Zion and lamella were by far the most popular high school athletes at the time and by the time the Bron got to the spot the four thousand seat gym was already overcrowded it was a security risk to let LeBron and his crew in there and it was surely the first time in probably a decade that LeBron was denied an entrance anywhere in Zion was the reason why science signed the second largest Shi deal ever for a rookie and the seventh largest all-time still a teenager before playing a single minute in the NBA Zion already became an extremely rich man he signed not one but two eight figure deals the first one was with the New Orleans elegance who signed him to a four-year 44 million dollar contract deal as the first pick in the draft but an even bigger check came from Nike or more precisely the Jordan Brand who won the shoe war for Zion Zion has several 10 million plus yearly contracts from various companies but ultimately chose to represent the Jordan Brand the deal is worth 75 million dollars over five years making it the second largest shoe deal in history after LeBrons 100 million dollar contract with Nike back in 2003 however since LeBron signed for seven years Zions deal became the largest annual deal ever and the seventh largest of all time not bad for a 19 year old Zion had his own camera palsy on cam during March Madness chakali athletes be paid is a question that has been in the news for a long time when Zion Williamson came to the NC double-a that question was pondered more than ever a packed arena and many hours of media content titled Duke or Zion were the norms of Williamson short college career we don't know if Barack Obama paid for that game when Zion shoe broke but if he did he paid several thousand dollars while Zion didn't get a dime of it he was such an attraction that changed the way college basketball was reported CBS went so far to introduce the Zion cam a camera that followed William's son explicitly for every second he spent on the court during March Madness more likely than not he was the straw that broke the camel's back and part of the reason why California instituted the fair pay to play Act law which allow college athletes to make money from endorsement deals for the first time and profit of their name and likeness in just two years Zion grew four inches and gained nearly 100 pounds as a high school freshman Zion wasn't exactly a small guy being six foot three inches tall weighing 175 pounds however even he was surprised when he stepped on the scale two years later and saw that his showing north of 250 pounds it was surprising because he was faster and more explosive than ever and that's what made him unique as a player there was never a player of that size and that kind of lettuce ISM outside of maybe LeBrons years in Miami however the Brawn is 2 inches taller and it took him almost 10 years MBA before he fully developed in Zion got there as a high school junior that's what made him so special and that's what started all the mixtapes and all the hype it all translated to the NBA when you can just bulldoze a seven-foot mountain of a man like Steven Adams then you know you got strength god help those who would have to garden or even worse take a charge from their Williamson freight train Zion out jump the vertical measurement machine at Duke man vs. machine is a title of many famous YouTube videos with many men trying to outrun cars outplay computers and chess or robots in table tennis Zions case his physical prowess proved to be too much for the machine that measures the vertical jump a Dukes practice facility a tall pole with metal bars that measures inches in an athlete's vertical simply didn't have enough bars when it was Zygons turn to jump the young phenomenon easily swatted at the top and all the bars the pole had so the Duke trainers had to put weights underneath the pole to make it higher that didn't help as I unrepeated the feet and cleared all the tabs again his official vertical at Duke is measured at 46 inches which would equal the highest measured vertical of the history of the NBA Draft Combine and enabled him to do things like this Zions basketball coach through middle school was his mom think nobody in the world would love to have their mom in the place they work even if you had to cool this mom in the world sure it can have its perks but when your mom wants you to succeed she's gonna require the best effort and you'll always hear about something that you did wrong that's exactly what happened to Zion Williamson in high school when his mom served as head coach of the team hardest coach I ever had to this day a good game in her book is almost impossible says ion we don't know if he ever got whooped by the head coach but whatever she did it clearly worked the Zion became one of the most dominant rookies in NBA history and is on his path to be a perennial all-star so popular in high school even Drake wore his jersey Drake is one of the most popular basketball fans in the world and can even be seen at basketball games and serves as an ambassador for the Toronto Raptors his home team Drake has been wearing various basketball jerseys as a part of his attire and back in early 2017 he decided to cop science high school Jersey even though the young phenom was only a 16 year old jr. Drake was also the first celebrity to follow him on social media and Zion was ecstatic when you are 16 years old and have one of the biggest stars on the planet wear your Jersey and follow you online that must feel like a second birthday this kind of represented throughout Williamson even more fans sang on later recalled that his classmates were counting how many followers he would gain between to school periods and said that that number used to rise by tens of thousands in that 45-minute span what can we say Drake is a pretty good Instagram influencer Zion grew up playing point guard because he was rarely the biggest player on his team Zions game is predicated on size strength and athleticism but he's more than just the athletic freak of nature the young pelicans star also has a decent feel for the game as he's shown the ability to slice defenses with some pretty crisp passes part of this game was developed because he used to play point guard growing up as he was never the biggest player on his team as we just mentioned he started broken up after his freshman year in high school and until then he was not nearly as dominant Zion play AAU basketball with John Moran as they both grew up in the same area John Moran was a sophomore and Zion was a freshman and they both showed promise but nobody could have known that these two kids were gonna be future NBA stars and first two picks they could both dunk even back then but they weren't athletic as they are now in Zions of anorexic compared to present-day he was also extremely shy and he didn't socialize much and hung out with his mom after AAU games he's much more relaxed on social now and we're guessing that all the Ducks helped him out you can't post the rise and dominate people and then be shy about it later

Channel: Nonstop Sports

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Keywords: zion williamson, facts about zion williamson, things you didn't know about, zion williamson dunks, nba, pelicans, zion williamson in high school, zion playing football, shoe deal, jordan, richest athlete, zion williamson highlights, top 10

Id: hwrkPZ59f1Y

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 21 2020