God Shammgod, the New Orleans Pelicans‘ new assistant coach and one of the league’s most respected player-development voices, said in a recent interview that Zion Williamson is spending the summer working to become a three-level scorer. If it takes, it would address the one real gap in an otherwise overwhelming game.
The numbers explain why that matters. Williamson averaged 21.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists last season while shooting 60 percent from the field, and he did it in 62 games — the second-highest total of his career and the availability that, by Joe Dumars’ own account, convinced the Pelicans’ new basketball boss he had no interest in trade offers. What Williamson has never had is a reliable outside shot. He remains a paint-bound force, and defenses have long been able to load up on the one place he wants to go.
A jump shot changes that math. If Williamson can make defenses respect him from the mid-range and beyond, his rim pressure — already the best part of his game — becomes harder to wall off, and the driving lanes open for teammates as well. Shammgod’s track record developing guards gives the project credibility, though the caveat is the obvious one: this is summer work described by a coach, not a shot chart from October. Williamson has flashed jumpers before without making them a staple.
Availability is still the whole story in New Orleans. A 62-game season was the encouraging part of last year, and pairing that with even a passable outside shot is what would move Williamson from productive to genuinely difficult to plan against.
In fantasy, the availability is the headline. Williamson’s per-game production has never been the question, and 62 games is the version managers dream about. A real three-point shot would lift his ceiling from an elite two-category big to a more complete scorer, but treat that as upside rather than a projection. Draft him for the efficiency and counting stats, and price in the games-played risk that has followed him his whole career.
