Zion Williamson’s college basketball career has, presumably, come to an end following Duke’s Elite Eight loss to Michigan State over the weekend. It’s expected that the first-team All-American will forgo his final three years of eligibility en route to getting selected No. 1 overall in the 2019 NBA Draft, signing a potentially historic sneaker deal, and becoming a superstar.
But there’s a lot of time between now and then, and Williamson, at is core, is a person who just likes to play basketball. He’s also a college student, and when you are a college student who likes to play basketball, you go to gyms on your campus and find places to play pickup.
The issue is that hoops at gyms on campus tend to be, well, not designed for someone who is 6’7 and 280+ pounds and who is capable of generating more power than a wind turbine to dunk on them. So when Williamson threw down on a random gym basket, this happened.
Zion back at it! 😱 Please tell me that goal is still attached tho… pic.twitter.com/veMhSzMZhp
— SLAM (@SLAMonline) April 3, 2019
Throwing an alley-oop off the backboard and exploding through the lane en route to a dunk rules, but doing it in a way that caused the basket to shake like this is fantastic. It’s unfortunate that we’re not going to see Williamson play competitive basketball again until Summer League (maybe) or the start of the NBA season (definitely), but if he wants to just show up at open gyms and stuff until then, that’d be extremely good.
