We went looking for wisdom from the man who has won more basketball games than anyone in history. As reference points go, Mike Krzyzewski is about as good as it gets, since he’s been winning games in bunches for 40 years, starting out at a place, West Point, where winning games on occasion has been the trick for most of its coaches.
So after Krzyzewski walked off the Madison Square Garden court with the 1,111th victory of his career, his 1,038th at Duke, we wanted to know: What makes Zion Williamson the freakish force of nature that he is? How do you explain the power, the strength, the leaping ability, the force?
Krzyzewski smiled.
“Did you see him?” he asked.
Yes, sometimes it’s best to keep it simple. A player as unique as Williamson, it’s best to let your eyes do much of the explaining, because there’s only so much you can read and hear about him. You really do have to experience him.
You have to see him intercept an alley-oop pass — think about it: how many times have you ever seen that? — at a point so far north of the arena floor it looks like he’s scraping the ball off the Garden’s pinwheel ceiling. You have to see how he handles alley-oops aimed at him that really aren’t that well-executed — and it doesn’t matter, because he grabs them out of the sky and slams them home anyway.
The one that had Krzyzewski shaking his head after Duke’s 69-58 win over previously unbeaten Texas Tech was a sequence in the second half when Williamson grabbed an offensive rebound, missed a couple of times, grabbed his own rebounds in traffic and was finally fouled on his fourth jump.
“That flurry …” Krzyzewski said, smiling, shaking his head. “I mean … he’s 18. What were you doing when you were 18? If you were 18 right now you’d probably be playing Fortnite, not going up time after time with all these men.”
Now, this is a coach who has seen a few things. He’s won five national championships. He’s won three Olympic gold medals. He isn’t prone to hyperbole. And yet, when he speaks of Williamson, his face softens and it’s as if he’s a high school kid talking about his first crush.
“He’s a natural,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m glad he’s with us.”
It is OK to dream if you are a Knicks fan — or a Hawks fan, or a Suns fan, or a Bulls fan. A talent like this isn’t available in every draft, but he’s going to be available at the top of this one. If you are a Knicks fan, it is not only allowed, it’s encouraged for you to think about what this might look like next year night after night in the Garden. It’s OK to wonder if the laws of probability aren’t overdue to deliver for you.
It’s OK to dream of frozen envelopes, even.
He isn’t a perfect player. At some point, it will behoove him to do what Ben Simmons has yet to do, which is develop a consistent outside shot (his one gaffe all night was an air-ball from 3-point range; it was his 13th miss in 16 attempts from deep this year). And, of course, there were the five fouls he picked up in only 24:40 of play, four of them offensive.
Zion was pretty Zen about that — “Can’t do anything about it. They’re better referees than me,” he said — and Krzyzewski was decidedly coy about it.
“I don’t have an opinion on the calls but if you do, feel free to email someone on our staff,” he said with a laugh. “Especially that last one.”
RJ Barrett is a better raw scorer on the Duke team. Tre Jones is a breathtakingly precocious point guard who leaves his coach searching for superlatives every bit as much as Williamson does. There is little doubt Duke will be ranked in the top five all year. They are that good, that talented. They are good enough to have drawn Jimmy Butler and Trae Young to the game as interested observers.
They play a brand of ball that’s easy on the eyes.
But the one you can’t take your eyes off is the one who went for 17 and 13 in those limited minutes, who made the Garden gasp and will keep it dreaming for the next couple of months. He isn’t a perfect player by any stretch, and that’s the part that’s really amazing. Imagine when he actually reaches his potential.