San Antonio Spurs Prospect Watch: Ziaire Williams

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Ziaire Williams
Photo via Stanford

The San Antonio Spurs are starting their preseason and it’s time to over pre-react (or preact if you prefer) to them having not even played yet. There are plenty of media folks who think that the Spurs will miss the playoffs yet again this season. They have solid reasons to believe that between the West getting better and the Spurs potentially playing a lot of young guys this season.

In order to get you all ready for when they draft in 2021 (hopefully before November this time), I am already going to start profiling some draft prospects. This week’s player to watch is Stanford’s Ziaire Williams. The 6-foot-8, 185-pound forward has some nice tools, but has gotten off to a rocky start this season. Here are some of his stats so far this season (after 4 games):

  • 9.8 PPG, 1.5 APG, 6.5 RPG, 2.8 TOPG
  • 32.6 FG%, 26.3 3P%, 4/4 FT

I would usually list the offensive rating and the defensive ratings of players, but it is much too early in the season to get a good sense of that for Williams. However, he was a tenacious defender in high school and has shown that same tenacity so far in college. He has good switchability potential that should come to fruition once he really hits the weight room.

Some people are already comparing Williams to Paul George, which is not fair at this point in his development. However, it’s not a terrible stretch of logic to think he could one day get there. He can handle the ball well enough to get his own shot, but has struggled with turnovers (2.8 per game so far) when trying to handle it for more than that.

However, it will be worth it to keep an eye on Williams as the season progresses and he becomes more familiar with the speed and strength of the collegiate game. He was an excellent and deep three-point shooter in high school and he’s shown some flashes of it at Stanford already.

Williams is a good rebounder, plays with great energy, and should become the shooter we know him to be. He will have to show some more consistency to prove he is a lottery-bound player, but there’s no reason to think he won’t get there.

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