Zion Williamson has been called "the future of basketball," and is arguably the best college
basketball player in a long long time.
But what do we really know about him outside of his basketball skills?
Here's the untold truth of Zion Williamson.
When Williamson was 5, he knew he was going to be a basketball star, and he never really
showed any sign that he might change his mind.
While still a kindergartener, he told his stepdad Lee Anderson that he was going to
play college hoops and become the number one player in the country.
Credit to Anderson, who took his stepson's ambitions seriously and signed him up for
the Sumter Falcons AAU team where he was the only 5-year-old on a team that otherwise consisted
of 9-year-olds.
By the age of 9, Williamson was getting up at 5 AM every day to run drills and practice
shots.
With that kind of drive, it's really not surprising that he was able to get so close to his goal
at so young an age.
She's pretty humble about it now, but Sharonda Sampson has a lot to do with her son Zion's
rise to fame.
She's a middle-school physical education teacher who coached her son's middle school basketball
team as well as all of his recreation league teams.
When Williamson was in the seventh and eighth grade, he put up 20 points per game with his
mom as his coach.
"I think Zion…
Well his step dad and I you know were college athletes so we knew like the hard work to
get there."
Sampson says her son was an unusually level-headed player for a middle schooler.
As she told the News & Observer,
"You know, middle school boys learning how to play basketball, if two boys run at you,
chances are you're going to turn the ball over.
Most middle school kids, you see that kind of pressure coming, you start panicking.
Not Zion.
No, not Zion."
Williamson is known for having a body more typical of a football player, but he had no
idea how huge he was going to be until he actually grew into it.
According to an interview with GQ, he didn't really start gaining weight until his last
two years of high school, and when that growth spurt finally started, it got a bit out of
control.
As a freshman at Spartanburg Day School in South Carolina, he was just 6'3" and 175 pounds.
But then he gained about a hundred pounds over two years.
He's currently listed at 6'7" and 285 pounds.
For most of us, gaining 100 pounds is bad news, but Williamson says the extra weight
helped his game.
He claims that it made him faster, stronger, and a more versatile player.
Williamson is known as a mindblowing, rim-rattling dunker.
In fact, people all over the internet make Zion Williamson dunking compilations.
But this dunker extraordinaire doesn't really like having this reputation, so much so that
he used to go out of his way to not dunk.
Williamson told GQ that he wants to be known for being a great player in all facets of
the game, not just for being a dunker.
As he put it,
"I could probably score 40 points, get 10 rebounds, 10 assists, but I can have one dunk
that was incredible, and those other 38 points don't matter no more."
He's since come to terms with his reputation, though, especially after talking it over with
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski , who helped him realize that Duke recruits the best overall
players.
"Zion is the most unique athlete I've coached at Duke."
The only thing cooler than being an up-and-coming basketball star is being an up-and-coming
basketball star with famous fans, like Canadian teen stars-turned-world famous rappers.
Back in 2017, Drake, who'd been quietly following Williamson's high school career, posted a
photo of himself wearing Williamson's #12 Spartanburg Day School jersey on Instagram.
That must've been a pretty big thrill for the then-16-year-old.
Even more thrilling is the fact that these two still send each other the occasional private
message.
And it isn't just rappers who are showing Williamson the internet love.
During his high school days, he also received messages from NBA players Nate Robinson and
Dwight Howard, and NFL stars Odell Beckham Jr. and Dez Bryant.
By the summer of 2017, people were already calling Williamson "the next LeBron James."
Naturally, that attracted the attention of the actual LeBron James, who showed up at
a showcase in Las Vegas to see Williamson play.
When James arrived, there were already a few NBA players in the audience and the gym was
packed with 4,000 people.
It was so crazy, in fact, that James' group was turned away at the door because their
presence was deemed a security risk.
So James didn't get to see Williamson play that day, and it was another year and a half
before he got the opportunity.
On February 9, 2019 the NBA star was in attendance as Duke defeated Virginia 81-71, with Williamson
racking up 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists.
James' reaction echoed the rest of the basketball world's, as he praised the performance as
being, quote, "ridiculous."
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