Two and a half years after their arrival in the NBA, Zion Williamson and Ja Morant are currently experiencing opposite trajectories. Certainly both already selected for the All-Star Game, the first two choices of the 2019 Draft do not have the same success on the collective level.
On the one hand, Zion Williamson has still not managed to bring the Pelicans back to the playoffs, he who is struggling above all to play a full season and stay healthy (only 85 games played in his career, out of 202 possible). On the other, Ja Morant quickly established himself as the leader of the Grizzlies, qualified for the playoffs in 2021 and who are progressing as much as they surprise, in the heights of the Western conference.
Suffice to say that, if we had to take stock of their respective careers today, Ja Morant would logically and largely have the upper hand over Zion Williamson at the present time. But everything would probably have been different if the two nuggets from New Orleans and Memphis had teamed up as soon as they arrived in the league.
A scenario far from being utopian, because the leaders of NOLA wanted effectively articulate their reconstruction process around a Morant/Williamson duo, during the summer of 2019!
The ideal duo for after Anthony Davis?
To put things in context, remember that the Pelicans had just transferred Anthony Davis to the Lakers at that time. Therefore, they needed to find a new headliner for their project, to pair it with Brandon Ingram and Jrue Holiday.
To do this, what better than to associate under the same colors Zion Williamson and Ja Morant, in other words the two leads most popular at the moment? It was still necessary that New Orleans, guaranteed to select first, managed to convince the Grizzlies to let go of their 2nd draft choice. Which would have allowed him to draft Zion Williamson then Ja Morant, teammates in their youth.
Unfortunately for franchise GM David Griffin, Memphis couldn’t bring itself to pass up a talent like Ja Morant. No offer was therefore deemed sufficient, although it included the 4th choice of this same 2019 Draft, recovered from the Lakers, as part of the transfer of Anthony Davis.
In the end, the Pelicans therefore settled for Zion Williamson as the first choice and the Grizzlies were able to draft Ja Morant as the second, while the Pels also got their hands on De’Andre Hunter with their 4th choice… before sending him to the Hawks, in exchange for Jaxson Hayes, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Didi Louzada.
With hindsight, we can also say that the “front office” of NOLA was not very inspired on this one, because Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Didi Louzada have just left Louisiana, while Jaxson Hayes struggling to spread its wings in the NBA. And to make matters worse, we still don’t know when Zion Williamson will be able to play again…
| Shots | Bounces | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | GM | Minimum | Shots | 3 points | LF | Off | Def | Early | pd | bp | Int | CT | party | Points |
| Cj Mccollum | 4 | 35.8 | 50.6 | 33.3 | 83.3 | 1.2 | 5.8 | 7.0 | 5.5 | 2.0 | 1.2 | 0.0 | 1.5 | 26.0 |
| Brandon Ingram | 44 | 34.3 | 45.2 | 34.0 | 81.9 | 0.7 | 5.0 | 5.7 | 5.3 | 2.7 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 2.2 | 22.3 |
| Jonas Valanciunas | 52 | 31.2 | 53.8 | 39.2 | 82.5 | 3.2 | 8.2 | 11.4 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0.9 | 3.3 | 18.0 |
| Josh Hart | 41 | 33.5 | 50.5 | 32.3 | 75.3 | 1.3 | 6.5 | 7.8 | 4.1 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 2.9 | 13.4 |
| Devonte Graham | 54 | 30.8 | 35.8 | 34.1 | 84.6 | 0.5 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 4.5 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 1.4 | 13.0 |
| Nickeil Alexander-Walker | 50 | 26.3 | 37.5 | 31.1 | 72.2 | 0.7 | 2.6 | 3.3 | 2.8 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 1.8 | 12.8 |
| Herb Jones | 55 | 29.9 | 50.1 | 36.2 | 85.0 | 1.3 | 2.6 | 3.9 | 2.1 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 3.1 | 9.6 |
| Willy Hernangomez | 31 | 16.3 | 53.3 | 42.9 | 74.7 | 2.6 | 4.2 | 6.9 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 1.9 | 8.9 |
| Jaxson Hayes | 46 | 16.8 | 64.3 | 25.9 | 76.1 | 1.4 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 2.3 | 8.5 |
| Tony Snell | 2 | 12.6 | 45.5 | 37.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 1.5 | 6.5 |
| Kira Lewis, Jr. | 24 | 14.2 | 40.4 | 22.4 | 83.3 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 5.9 |
| Garrett Temple | 54 | 19.2 | 37.9 | 32.0 | 71.8 | 0.5 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 5.4 |
| jose alvarado | 31 | 12.8 | 42.6 | 31.6 | 74.1 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 5.1 |
| Trey Murphy III | 41 | 12.7 | 33.8 | 33.6 | 85.7 | 0.7 | 1.5 | 2.1 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 3.9 |
| Naji Marshall | 32 | 9.6 | 37.0 | 21.3 | 85.7 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 2.1 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 3.8 |
| Jared Harper | 2 | 5.2 | 42.9 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 3.5 |
| Gary Clark | 26 | 11.3 | 36.4 | 38.2 | 75.0 | 0.6 | 2.1 | 2.7 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 2.9 |
| Tomas Satoransky | 32 | 15.0 | 29.9 | 16.1 | 76.0 | 0.6 | 1.4 | 2.0 | 2.4 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 2.8 |
| Didi Louzada | 2 | 3.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
