Zion is a horrible defender breh. Like really really bad.
Then again, for the first half of the 1990s defense was terrible, so you might be on to something.
1st Quarter
0:33 Zion is playing way off of Kuzma, Kuzma drives and Zion does...what? He sorta hops around in place and does NOTHING, Kuzma scores a layup like they're playing in the rookie/sophomore game. Announcer, "Kuzma gets past Williamson easily and slams it home."
1:05 Bradley drives inside, Zion doesn't close to the hoop or do anything, McGee gets the ball and Zion is further from the basket than anyone else, McGee dunks easily without Zion even trying to help
1:09 Danny Green finds Zion on him as he's going down court, DANNY fukkING GREEN decides to manhandle Zion and even shoulders him on purpose before scoring an easy, uncontested layup. Announcer, "And Zion gets beat again, by Danny Green this time."
1:40 Bradley gets the ball open after a defensive blunder, Zion comes off of Kuzma and sorta halfway commits to closing on Bradley with a lazy shuffle-step, wide-open Kuzma cuts and Bradley under zero pressure tosses an easy pass to him for another open slam. Announcer sarcastically, "And nice defense there by the Pelicans."
3:43 Zion was on the bench for six minutes, after he comes back in LeBron finds Zion switched onto him after a missed shot. You can see his eyes light up, LeBron does some dribbling just for fun and then takes his body right into Zion, pushing him under the basket and scoring an easy left-handed layup.
4:00 Kuzma finds himself isolated against Zion and you can just see him ready to eat. He backs up and then drives right at Zion, spins off of his body, drops in the easy close-range teardrop and-1 with the foul too. That's 11 points right at the hoop that Lakers players scored on Zion already and we're just 2 minutes into the 2nd quarter.
In there are also a bunch of transition baskets where over and over you see the Lakers scoring while Zion is either the last one back or isn't even in the picture.
He's a terrible one-on-one defender. He has zero help defense (just 11 steals and 5 blocks so far in 15 games). He has no transition defense. He doesn't know how to switch yet. All of his advanced stats on defense are terrible. By absolutely any way you measure it, Zion is a BAD defender.
Now, he's still young, he has room to grow. But anyone peddling the narrative that Zion plays hard on defense is full of shyt.
