New NBA Superstars: Born from YouTube Mixtapes
There are some people who were born to play the game. They made their way into the world with the singular purpose of dominating the court. Two of these superstars that have dominated this year are Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson.
These boys have not only taken over the world by storm but also have had stories that seem to be fairy tales. These are full-scholarship division one players who are the captains of young America. These are the kinds of people Zion Williamson (18) and Luca Doncic (19) are.
Players for the big leagues are scouted out of millions of people who harbor the same dreams. These ones specifically were born in an age where there was a massive possibility for publicity via the internet. Now all these players do have unique origin stories and deserve buckets of respect as they have earned their way here, however, YouTube did give them an initial boost.
#1 Zion Williamson
Zion has an unbelievable story. He broke his wrist in freshman year on court in high school. He at that point was a towering 6'3" and 175 pounds and still had immense room for growth.
Since then in the next year, he gained 50 pounds and a little over three inches. Now he is bigger than many people in the NBA and is super athletic, but obviously, he had a long way to grow into what he has become today.
The first traced video for Williamson on YouTube was published in early 2015. Here he was choppy and did not have the game sense that is needed to play division one. He was great for his age, but needed to be better. His first fan-based mixtape came roughly a year later and this was the start of something brilliant.
Once Williamson stopped growing was when things started picking up. His growth pains had stifled his potential and the lack of pains led to unbelievable athleticism. Puberty really did him well.
So well, that people think he may even be the next LeBron. However, there is no other truth with Zion. He really has been the best ever since he was sixteen. The hype really is real and the expertise that those mixtapes showed was not a lie.