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#3 The New Orleans Pelicans understood what is best for their offense
Although Brandon Ingram ended the season with more field-goal attempts per game than Zion Williamson, the team started to understand what Williamson's dominance represented for its offense midway through the 2020-21 NBA season.
Williamson averaged 17 attempts per game, while Ingram ended the season with 18. However, the former ultimately led the team in Usage Rating for the entire season and led them in points per game too.
Zion Williamson's impact on the New Orleans Pelicans' offense was notable last year as the team put up a 113.9 Offensive Rating with him on the court and 107 without him.
#2 Zion Williamson's passing ability is underrated
Zion Williamson averaged 3.7 assists per game last season, which was almost double the amount he put up in his brief rookie season.
In the first 20 games of the 2020-21 NBA regular season, as Brandon Ingram was running the team's offense, Williamson averaged 23 points and two assists per game. As the season went on, Williamson's overall offensive numbers improved, with the lefty putting up 28.5 points and 4.3 assists per game in his next 42 appearances. He had clearly taken over the offense of the team and also created plays for his teammates.
Williamson is not a premium passer, but as he will face double-teams quite often in the paint, his passes will need to consistently find teammates in the sweet spot. As things stand, he seems to be able to carry that out when needed.
#1 Williamson's offense was as good as anyone's in the NBA in the late stretch of last year
Zion Williamson's 27 points per game from the 2020-21 NBA regular season led the New Orleans Pelicans. He also ranked eighth in the entire NBA, ahead of established superstars like Kyrie Irving, Nikola Jokic and Kawhi Leonard.
Over the final 17 games played by Zion Williamson in the 2020-21 NBA season, he averaged 28.6 points per game with 58.5% efficiency from the field (19 attempts per game).
From April 6th, 2021 to May 4th, 2021, Williamson averaged 28.6 points per game, which ranked eighth in the NBA in that span. The numbers put him ahead of Luka Doncic, Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic.
In that stretch, Stephen Curry led the NBA with 14 games with at least 30 points, and Zion Williamson was second with nine. If he did not suffer a finger fracture that caused him to miss the final six games of the year, Williamson could've definitely improved his numbers over the final stretch. He may have even helped the Pels enter the Play-In places (they went 1-5 and finished two games out of the Play-In spots).
Looking at the upcoming NBA season, we could bet on Zion Williamson continuing with such displays for the New Orleans Pelicans.
