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Zion Williamson is the projected No. 1 overall pick in next month’s NBA Draft, meaning he’ll be playing for the New Orleans Pelicans after the team won last week’s NBA Draft Lottery. And while Williamson is slowly coming to the realization that he’ll be starting his career in the Big Easy and not somewhere like New York — which is, reportedly, where he was looking forward to going — another thing he may need to adapt to is playing alongside superstar Anthony Davis.
While Davis has reportedly maintained his stance about being traded this summer, with Zion Williamson now part of the team, just maybe the Pelicans can pitch him on wanting to stay and see how things go, which could lead to a formidable duo. Regardless of what happens, Williamson already has a story with Davis that’s pretty unique, with the NBA star once snubbing a high school-aged Zion for an interview request once.
In a 2016 documentary, Zion Williamson talked about how the rejection from Anthony Davis actually impacted him in a big way. That’s because, after missing out on getting Davis’ signature while he was 16 years old — just two years ago — it taught him to spend a little extra time signing for kids who want his own autograph. Take a look at the video below from the documentary which shows Zion signing things for young fans while in high school even before he became a megastar.
Like most of us, Zion Williamson wanted to collect as many signatures as possible from his favorite athletes, and he spoke about that in the documentary a little bit, per the New York Post.
“When I was little, I looked up to high-school players and wanted their autographs and sometimes I couldn’t get it, I’d be hurt,” Williamson says on camera. “I said when I grew up, I don’t want to be like that. I want to sign every kid’s autograph. No matter how long it takes me.
“I try to sign every kid’s autograph. I don’t want to turn a little kid down because I know it will hurt them because it hurt me. Anthony Davis, John Wall turned me down. So I try to sign everybody’s.”
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“John Wall, Jaylen Brown, Stanley Johnson, Anthony Davis, I’d always dream of meeting them and see them play in high school but never got that chance,” Williamson says in the film. “I always told myself, if I work hard enough, maybe I can be in that kind of spotlight.”
“As long as I give it back, I’m good.”
This is an awesome mindset of Zion Williamson, and shows how he wants to please everyone. Now, is that possible? Obviously not. But it does show that he’s willing to go the extra mile to make sure he engages with fans because, just a couple years ago, he was on the other side, so he knows how being told no impacted him.
It’ll be interesting to see if Zion and Anthony Davis end up being teammates or not, but, at the very least, the NBA superstar has already taught the soon-to-be rookie a lesson without even knowing it.