With the first pick in the NBA Draft, ESPN draft analyst Chauncey Billups selected one of the worst possible approaches to complimenting a player’s character, after Zion Williamson had finished taking his ceremonial photo with commissioner Adam Silver and was making his way over to ESPN’s Maria Taylor for his first interview as a New Orleans Pelican.




Before Zion could get on the mic, Billups decided to throw in one extra compliment to the former Duke player’s personality as a team player. He said that Zion was “raised right” because he had “two parents in his home.”

The clear implications of Billups’s statement is that players who did not have two parents in the home—like, for example, fourth-overall draft pick De’Andre Hunter—were not raised right. That implied point is further driven home with the next sentence being about discipline.


One would think there’d still be so many different things to talk about with Zion Williamson given the constant media attention he’s gotten over the past year or so, but I suppose these kind of bullshit character assessments are a fine substitute for basic inoffensive commentary.