The obliteration was not an ad-lib. As the fast break unfolded, Zion Williamson watched the 6' 4" shooting guard on the team he was facing gather the ball near the free throw line. From just beyond midcourt Williamson darted toward the basket, shortened his stride and timed his approach before exploding off two feet, extending his arms like a volleyball player trying to block a spike at the net and swatting the ball off the glass. Witnesses would express concern for Williamson’s safety after he appeared to slam his head before landing with a thud, though not before wondering: Is the backboard O.K.?

Ballislife.com

The sequence on July 13 was recorded by many of those packed into the Upward Star Center, a 60-acre, multipurpose sports complex in Williamson’s hometown of Spartanburg, S.C., but the version captured by the app Overtime was retweeted and liked more than 16,000 times combined and served as the centerpiece for a handful of blog posts. “Check Out Zion Williamson Destroying This Wayward Dunk Attempt,” Deadspin urged readers. “Zion Williamson Is a Man Among Boys and This Block Proves It,” SB Nation proclaimed. Jerry Meyer, the basketball scouting director for 247Sports, jokingly tweeted that Williamson “could have easily been charged [with] attempted homicide.” The possibility that Williamson would pull off more plays like this kept fans around until the final buzzer, even as his South Carolina Supreme team was on its way to a 16-point loss in the Adidas Gauntlet Finale.

A mesmerizing dunker, Williamson has claimed the No. 1 play on SportsCenter’s Top 10, garnered interest from Good Morning America, received a Twitter shoutout from Steph Curry and struck up a relationship with Drake.

Afterward the 6' 7", 240-pound 17-year-old retreated to an enclave outside the main entrance to carve out a few minutes away from the intense spotlight he feels almost everywhere he goes. Despite the presence of a family friend serving as a de facto bodyguard—a 35-year-old former security guard with a shaved head and a thick red beard—Zion was intercepted over the course of the weekend by an autograph-seeker bearing a custom-made version of Williamson’s high school jersey, a man with a ponytail and a facial hair pattern reminiscent of a WWE heel and a giddy woman in a Mexico national soccer team jersey, which Williamson politely signed. Perhaps the only time he sat unbothered for more than a couple of minutes was when he scarfed down a plate of mini cheeseburgers, meatloaf and mashed potatoes at a nearby Golden Corral with his teammates.

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The chase-down rejection was a viral hit, but Williamson is known primarily for his mind-blowing dunks. He has claimed the No. 1 play on SportsCenter’s Top 10, attracted interest from Good Morning America, received a Twitter shoutout from Steph Curry and struck up a texting relationship with Canadian rapper Drake. Among high school basketball players Williamson is a celebrity on a scale perhaps not seen since LeBron James. Other prep stars, such as John Wall, Thon Maker and Seventh Woods, have captivated millions of viewers with memorable mixtapes, and LaMelo Ball, the youngest brother in America’s most inescapable hoops family, has cultivated a vast online following, thanks mostly to his publicity-hungry father. But Williamson is unique in his capacity to consistently produce stunning plays that send tremors across basketball Twitter and serve as fodder for mesmerizing YouTube clips.