Zion Williamson’s NBA potential has been brimming ever since he began jumping out of the gym during his rookie season in 2019.
However, lack of motivation and discipline had him struggling to be the best New Orleans Pelican he could be, until now.
He’s been ragged on his inability to keep his weight down, but at the team’s 2025 media day, he showed off a newly slim, muscular build, excitedly saying that this was the best shape he’d been in since leaving Duke.
Of course, his conditioning is also linked to money, due to contract clauses that require him not to exceed 295 pounds. Plus, rapper Cam’ron had something to say about his intentions during the press conference, too, comparing Williamson’s weight loss to a neighborhood “crackhead getting clean.”
Cam says that his crackhead buddy told hilariously clever jokes, and while he was happy for him once he got clean, the jokes just didn’t hit the same.
“Sometimes you got a n-gga doing too much. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be in shape, what if now he don’t play the same,” Cam said. “Maybe he needed to drink that Coors after the game. That Heineken, that Bud Light, whatever he was drinking after the game. Because that’s what keeps him on his D.”
In comparing him to his neighborhood crackhead, he adds, “Go ahead and try to clean ’em up and make him skinny. I can’t pay for the clean you, but I respect it.”
Former NBA player Jeff Teague also took issue with Williamson’s body transformation, speaking on it during his Club 520 podcast.
“This is probably the dumbest press conference I’ve heard in my life,” Teague admits. “All this stuff is because of you. You choose to eat, be out of shape… Now all of a sudden it’s a contract year, probably, or he’s looking for an extension.”
“You were damn near 300 pounds,” he says as the clip ends.
His cohosts agree that they’ve spent too much time focused on his weight over the past few years and comment on the damage he could have done to his body while playing overweight.
See social media’s reaction to commentary around Williamson’s new look.
