Zion Williamson might be the New Orleans Pelicans’ opening-night starting center. Does that make him a “big” in today’s more vague positional dictionary? Reasonable minds can disagree on this, I suppose, but this is my list and so I’m going to make a ruling.
No, Zion Williamson is not a big man.
For starters, he’s 6-foot-6. He’s an insignificant rebounder. He’s not a rim protector. He cannot credibly defend real centers. The fact that the Pelicans are either going to start him at center or at least play him significant minutes at center doesn’t mean he’s a center. It means the Pelicans are kind of screwed.
Alas, Williamson is a wing — a power forward, to this point, on the technical lineup card — but a penetrator who begins most of his possessions either initiating offense like an actual point guard or from perimeter cutting blocks. From there, yes, he has massive interior advantages due to his power and lower-center leverage that feeds into his explosive athleticism. Allow him to get his momentum going and it’s a wrap.
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But remember, Jalen Brunson also overpowers many of his positional counterparts in paint, particularly in the post, but that doesn’t make him a big man, either. Zion has positional advantages as a wing and he has major disadvantages as a big. You can look at it like that, too.
All of this is to say, again, Zion is a wing, and barely a top-10 one at that, according to our CBS Sports annual top 100 players list published earlier this week. Below is a positional breakout of that list with the top 10 wings heading into the 2024-25 season, as voted on by our 10 NBA analysts.
10. Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans
Top 100 rank: 21
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