Impetus: former NBA great, Scottie Pippen, believes Duke’s Zion Williamson ‘has done enough’ to be the #1 pick in the NBA draft and should shut himself down now and not risk getting injured
To those who don’t know the context, Scottie Pippen is considered one of the cheapest men on the face of the planet. Perhaps not quite as artificially manufactured enough to end up on an episode of Extreme Cheapskates, but he’s still notoriously cheap to where there are articles all over the internet about his cheapness, from his peers, and more notably, pretty much the entire restaurant industry.
Needless to say, when it comes to the topic of money, it shouldn’t be any surprise when Scottie Pippen’s stance is on whatever side banks the most amount of money with the smallest risk of losing it.
Like his opinion of Duke’s freshman superstar, Zion Williamson; he of the 6’7, 275 lb. man child who is still growing, and is currently tearing up NCAA basketball with his monster dunks and Mutombo-like rejections. He’s played 16 games of college basketball, and has been putting up some prodigious numbers, but again, it’s just 16 games, in his first year of college ball.
But that’s more than enough for Stiffen Pippen, who’s completely convinced that he’s proven that he’s already worthy to be the consensus #1 draft pick in the next NBA Draft, and he’d be better off shutting it all down now, and preparing for the draft. I have a hard time thinking of a more selfish and self-serving suggestion, and sure, there’s always the argument of what college does for a ringer student-athlete like Williamson, but still if you’re remotely close to my line of thinking, accomplish one fucking thing before screwing everyone around you.
The irony is I fucking hate Duke, like any self-respecting sports fan. They’re insufferable, they’re obnoxious, and they’re oh-so easy to hate, but all of this stems from the fact that, at least in the world of college hoops, they’re good, and are pretty much always good. But I don’t even think they deserve the screw job of one of their highly touted prospects whom they courted and offered a free ride to, deciding to put himself first, shut everything down, and ruin their chances at success.
Ultimately, college ball is still a business, and I don’t really ever agree with the idea of screwing with the livelihood of other people, and I just feel that if Zion Williamson were to completely drop everything and prepare for the draft, he’d be doing just that; screwing the people that are trying to keep their livelihood.
I get that it’s like the rich taking an inconsequential hit, but there’s still an ethical component that seems a little despicable if a player were to just stop what they were doing and to leave others hanging. Even Duke shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of stuff. It shouldn’t be the least bit surprising that a money-grubber like Scottie Pippen thinks this, and it’s a good example of wishing that the players I liked as a kid would just sometimes shut the fuck up while I’m an adult, so I don’t hear the dumb things they think.
Fortunately, unless an injury occurs, I don’t really think Williamson really has Pippen’s suggestion as an option. I want to feel like if he were to shut himself down, he’d be in void of whatever agreement or scholarship terms that he probably signed on with when picking Duke, and that he’d be on his ass. Not that such would really matter since the NBA has even less morals than the NCAA, and would probably still pick an uneducated deadbeat #1 because of the potential he has to put a ball into a hoop.
It doesn’t help that Kyrie Irving played like 3 games before getting injured and still went #1, but at least he had somewhat of an excuse to shut things down before the draft. It’s the fact that the scouts were right all along and that he really was that good, which is kind of aggravating, because self-perceived purists like me don’t ever want to see people game the system and get away with it.
But back to the original topic, of course Scottie Pippen thinks that Zion Williamson should shut it down early and prepare for the draft. Who cares that Duke will probably get bounced in the second round instead of the sweet-16 without Zion’s contributions, because Zion will get paid! I bet Pippen has an invoice ready for Zion, in hopes that he’ll take his advice and dump school and go pro as soon as possible, so he can get paid sooner, and “owe” him some consulting fee or something similar, because he can’t stiff people on checks that he couldn’t afford in the first place.
