Zion Williamson has been leading the New Orleans Pelicans these past few weeks and has not disappointed in the slightest. The Pels are currently the number one seed in the Western Conference with an 18-8 record and have won 9 out of their last 10 games.
Advertisement
Williamson in this stretch has been particularly brilliant, averaging 26.5 points and 8.2 rebounds in these last 10 while shooting over 65% from the field. The most impressive victories from this stretch have been against none other the team that booted them from the Playoffs last year: the Phoenix Suns.
They have secured back-to-back wins against the 2021 Western Conference champions but it was their victory on December 9th that stirred up quite a bit of controversy. As seen worldwide, Zion 360 windmill dunked the ball after it was clear the Pels were going to win. This led to a variety of discussions about sportsmanship.
Shaquille O’Neal on the NBA being soft amidst Zion Williamson and the Pelicans’ ascent
Following Zion’s dunk, the Phoenix Suns and Pelicans players got into a bit of a scuffle and it felt as though a fight could potentially break out. Nothing bombastic took place and the Pels would go on to beat the Suns the very next game with massive boos from NOP fans being directed towards Chris Paul.
Shaquille O’Neal was asked about this hostility and he would go on to say that all NBA players do nowadays is act.
“Listen, NBA’s stands for Nothing But Actors. You know guys don’t push and all that. A lot of guys don’t want to lose that fine money. There’s only a few of us that didn’t care about that fine money,” said O’Neal.
Getting T’d up during a game results in a standard $2,000 fine that the player has to pay and if fights were more common, so would ejections, which could result in that $2,000 amount doubling up in a second. The wilder the moment, the more the player loses.
Shaq on Zion Williamson being more explosive than him.
Zion Williamson has shown a level of paint dominance that the NBA hasn’t seen since Shaquille O’Neal in his prime. ‘Bully-ball’ is a term that’s frequently used to describe both of these behemoths and it is quite the apt description.
When asked about Zion, Shaq actually admitted that the Duke product was in fact more explosive than he ever was, which is true. He then praised Williamson for the dunk, saying, “Phoenix got mad and then they still whooped them again.”
