This season is the first year of Zion's max salary contract, and we are starting to look at him with a higher eye, and his performance has dropped significantly this season, both in terms of stats and on-court performance, whether it is due to injuries or the impact of high weight, these are not the reasons for him to pull his hips with a high salary.
Performance evaluation
Looking at Zion this season simply from the data, there are so many changes in playing time of only 2 minutes, it can almost be said that there is a total decline, and the only thing is an increase of 0 in assists1, the most important thing is to have a great impact on scoring and rebounding, this year's Zion may be still looking for form after recovering from injury, the bounce height, explosiveness or speed is significantly lower than in the past, and the offensive means are only limited to the paint area, he is more or less affected, of course, Zion's feel can be said to be historical, and this year 17The number of 2 cuts is also a career high, ranking seventh in the league, you must know that the top ten names are all guards, which also shows his terrible destructive power, but without the above conditions, the number of collisions or fouls absorbed after cutting or making fouls will decrease, from his shooting percentage and free throws, it can be seen that he is not as buggy as in the past this season, of course, he is still more terrible than more than 90% of the players in the league.
And the rebounding part, in fact, in the offensive rebound, including the second score, has not declined, what is missing is his defensive rebound, which may be thought to be caused by his frequent fast break, but in fact, his personal and the team's fast break scores have not increased, and even the team part is still declining, so it is more because he often does not get stuck, and will always stand aside in a daze and wait for his teammates to grab the ball after grabbing, I personally think it is quite a pity, with such a bounce and body thickness, it should be relatively popular in the card position and rebounding, and I hope that he can work harder to play his advantages on the rebounding side in the future。
On the defensive end, as always, he is definitely not impossible, in the past games against players with forward size he can effectively defend, such as the semi-finals against the Kings and the game against the Hornets, his defense is impressive, although there are still quite a lot of mistakes, but he has worked hard in some scenes, but he is still powerless in the face of defenders, the lateral movement is too slow and easy to be too strong, a collision on the opponent will be staggered and fouled, these are difficult to improve in the short term, I just hope his defensive attitude can continue to maintain, at least not too much drag down the teamAt present, the Pelicans' defensive efficiency is wandering in the mid-section, and if Zion can maintain an aggressive defensive attitude, I believe the Pelicans' defense can be better.
Zion does have more attention to his teammates, although the assists are only 01, but a career-high 103 potential assists, or assist-to-turnover ratios can prove that when the opponent is defending against him, Zion will have a lot of assists when he turns to the organizational model, and on the whole, the court judges the organizational part, he is definitely improving and is often ignored by everyone, but this is limited to his performance when he is not started, to be honest, he will often rush to the basket after starting, and he does not observe the gaps of his teammates, of course, this is the case with ordinary players, which is also the gap between superstars and stars, which he must learn to go to the next level.
The frequency of singles has skyrocketed this season, and the number of rounds is fourth in the league but 23The 4% percentage is ranked first in the league with Doncic, and the efficiency is a little lower than him, but compared with himself last year, Zion's efficiency is still a lot lower, and the blocking and pick-and-roll ball is slightly lower but still in the early part of the league, and he is still better than many star guards in terms of efficiency alone, and the most surprising thing is that his low-post offense has dropped a lot.
In fact, it is not difficult to see from the game that Zion's low-post offense is nothing more than an option, using his left hand to put the basket after colliding with his body, but often he often hits hard without misalignment, such as encountering James, Aaron Gordon or Harrison Barnes, a forward with both thickness and height, then the success rate of course will not be too high, and he will only be better blocked with his left hand, this season he will occasionally show a pull-back jumper, perhaps he can be expected to integrate the jump shot into his low post offense.
In fact, it is difficult to explain anything for him because his offense has indeed declined this season, not only because his shots have decreased, but also because the overall efficiency is not as good as before, so it is difficult to explain anything for him, just continue to see if he can gradually break through himself as the season progresses, just like the fiery performance in December last year, of course, not to get injured is still the most important.
Stealth at a critical moment?
The performance of the Pelicans at key moments this season is really very poor, it is not uncommon for the second half to be reversed or fail to grasp the opportunity at the critical moment, not to mention the fact that it was reversed several times in the third quarter, and there are currently a total of 10 games that have reached the key decisive battle, the Pelicans have a fifty percent win rate, and the impression of Zion's key moments is actually very bad, and often the ball cannot be handed over to him, because the offensive means are concentrated in the paint area, the opponent is very good at targeting, looking at the data, at the critical moment of this season, Zion is only 13 points in the account, even lost to Herbert Jones, compared to last year, which was 41 point in the account, just looking at the points only lost to Fox, DeRozan and Beal.
Of course, judging from the number of shots and the playing time at key moments, it is reasonable that there will be a decline, he almost stayed on the court at key moments last year, and this season is only 27 minutes, but the performance on the court is obvious that Ingram has taken on more offense, of course, his performance at key moments this season is also average, so the lack of strength of the two has also led to the team not winning some games, not to mention the aforementioned, they were reversed several times in the third quarter without knowing it, Zion must find a way to make himself more present at critical moments, rather than playing an off-ball or supporting role, it stands to reason that if he becomes the player with the most offensive grasp on the court, after all, his shot is so close to the basket, but the point is how he can find good opportunities to get the ball and break through the opponent's target to score.
Summary
Although there is a lot of criticism for Zion, fans still have great expectations for him, at least so far he is almost one of the healthiest players for the Pelicans, and he also broke through the limit in the last back-to-back games, which is also a big improvement, in fact, the Pelicans' performance to this season is in line with expectations, but unfortunately they failed to grasp the leading game, probably calculated, there should be four games that were reversed by double digits, so I just specifically mentioned the performance at the critical moment, I hope the Pelicans and Zion can add some fuel and win the game that should have been won。 Finally, let's hope to watch a healthy Pelicans playoff game.