Zion and Alvarado, breaking orthodoxy and their opponents' spirit
The Pelicans are still on top of the West, stomping on their enemies.
Good morning. As is usual on Mondays, the newsletter is too long for most email clients. So click the headline to open in a browser or use the Substack app. Let’s basketball.
The New Orleans Pelicans bullied the Phoenix Suns in a playoff rematch on Friday despite missing Brandon Ingram and Herb Jones. Zion Williamson put up 35 points and was a +30 in his 37 minutes. +30 in an 11-point win. Understandably, with the Pelicans on top of the standings in the Western Conference at the end of a win over No. 2 at home, Zion was feeling pretty good.
So, with the game in hand and time set to expire, he did this.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... ZION WILLIAMSON.
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) 3:55 AM ∙ Dec 10, 2022
Pels broadcaster Antonio Daniels didn’t like it, and neither did the Suns. We don’t know exactly what happened, but Jose Alvarado and Chris Paul, who do not like each other for fairly obvious reasons, got into it after the final buzzer, which became a whole thing.
ZION WINDMILL 😱😱😱
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) 4:00 AM ∙ Dec 10, 2022
THEN BOTH TEAMS GOT CHIPPY!
By the way, we didn’t find out until Sunday why Alvarado and CP3 were mixed up at the end. Would you believe Paul tossed an elbow back at Alvarado? Yeah. Yeah, you would.
This unseen angle from Chris Paul and Jose Alvarado on Friday 👀
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) 8:53 PM ∙ Dec 11, 2022
(h/t: @WorldWideWob)
On the Friday broadcast, Daniels is absolutely correct: this is how rivalries are born. Competitive, meaningful games like the playoff series between these teams last season, with some familiarity and natural dislike, some more spirited competitive, a little bad blood: that’s a good entertainment product.
The thing is, Zion wasn’t just doing that for the fans, though it would have been fine if that was the case. Beating the Suns means something to him.
"That was a little out of character for me. But you gotta understand … They sent my teammates home last year.”
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) 6:23 AM ∙ Dec 10, 2022
Zion speaks on his late 360 windmill dunk during the Pelicans-Suns game. He kept receipts ✍️
Needless to say, it’s really great that beating the Suns, even in the regular season, means something to a young player like Zion Williamson. I hope it means something to him and Alvarado for their entire careers! The regular season needs more stakes. The NBA is inventing stakes with the play-in tournament and next year the in-season tournament. Legitimate on-court tension should be highlighted. Every Suns-Pelicans game should be on national TV and heavily promoted by the league going forward. Sunday’s rematch was not.
In any case, the Pelicans won in overtime. That’s two wins over the formerly No. 1 seed in three days. The Smoothie King Center sounds like the place to be right now.
THIS IS PELICANS BASKETBALL!!!!!
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) 10:00 PM ∙ Dec 11, 2022
All of this is the good stuff, the fuel fans need to keep caring about these games. This isn’t to say that sportsmanship is bad, or that the unwritten rules are obsolete. This is a Thing precisely because of the tension between sportsmanship and emotion, and how Zion ‘violated’ the unwritten rules on sportsmanship in a way that annoyed the Suns. Some of the tension around Alvarado, who is increasingly a central character in the rise of the Pelicans, is surely around his unorthodox gamesmanship with respect to Grand Theft Alvarado backcourt steals. He’s breaking orthodoxy. That creates tension. Zion is cranking Dunk of the Year candidates with the buzzer about to expire. That creates tension. Tension in a competitive entertainment product is good. The orthodoxy, the unwritten rules are necessary ingredients in creating the tension. Without them, no one would care that Zion spat on the Suns’ grave.
