Zion Lateef Williamson was born on 6 July 2000, in Salisbury, North Carolina. He is an American professional basketball player for the New Orleans Pelicans of the NBA. Zion was the first overall pick by the New Orleans Pelicans in the 2019 NBA Draft.
The left-handed power forward has only played 85 games since his NBA debut on July 5, 2019, against the New York Knicks. During the 2021-22 off-season, Williamson suffered a fractured foot and underwent subsequent surgery and missed that season.
According to reports, Zion’s average salary is over US$10 million from his four-year rookie deal of US$45 million. In addition to that, he pockets over US$20 million from endorsements alone.
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Williamson attended Spartanburg Day School, where he was a consensus five-star recruit and was ranked among the top-five players in the 2018 class. He led his team to three straight state championships and earned South Carolina Mr Basketball recognition in his senior season. Williamson also left high school as a McDonald’s All-American, runner-up for Mr Basketball USA, and USA Today All-USA first-team honouree.
In his freshman and only season with Duke, Williamson was named ACC Player of the Year, ACC Athlete of the Year and ACC Rookie of the Year. He set the single-game school scoring record for freshmen in January 2019, claimed the ACC Rookie of the Week accolade five times, earned AP Player of the Year, Sporting News College Player of the Year recognition and won the Wayman Tisdale Award.
In his second season in the NBA (2020-21), Zion was selected for his first NBA All-Star Game, making him the fourth youngest NBA player to be selected as an All-Star.
Zion Williamson owns a custom Ford Raptor designed just for him by DreamWorks Motorsports.
He has two Mercedes-AMG models; one model is Mercedes-AMG G 63(US$156,450) and the other model is the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door Coupe (US$161,200)
Zion, alongside NBA superstar Andre Iguodala and seven other investors, has invested in Whatnot, an online community marketplace which raised over US$224,000,000 in September 2019.
During the 2019 NBA draft, Zion was spotted wearing a gold and diamond Rolex watch. That single timepiece is worth over US$120,000.
Zion’s obsession with the Marvel character Thanos seemingly grew out of hand when he paid over US$50,000 for a custom Thanos-inspired Infinity Gauntlet chain studded with diamonds and all kinds of other expensive gems for his 20th birthday.
Williamson, who is represented by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), has been labelled by some US media outlets as the most marketable NBA player since LeBron James. Being one of the youngest faces of the NBA, Zion was anticipated to have many endorsement deals.
Currently, Williamson has a signature shoe deal with Jordan. His endorsements include Jordan, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, and NBA2K. According to Forbes, Zion pockets US$20 million from endorsements alone.
Let’s have a glance at his endorsement deals.
In July 2019, Williamson signed a seven-year, US$75m shoe deal with the Jordan brand. The then-20-year-old released his very first signature shoe named the Jordan Zion 1.
“I feel incredibly blessed to be a part of the Jordan Brand family,” Williamson said at the time.
Jordan currently features signature sneakers for both Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul, with Williamson expected to be the future face of the brand. The brand has short-term plans to launch digital billboards featuring Williamson that are slated to soon go live in key markets.
Zion Williamson has a multi-year endorsement deal in place with sports drinks giant Gatorade. He starred in the ad for Bolt24, “All Day Hydration”. The financial terms of the agreement have not been made public, but Forbes reports that the New Orleans Pelicans rookie nets a seven-figure amount annually from the deal.
Jeff Kearney, Gatorade’s global head of sports marketing, has said: “Zion has already shown a major interest in what we can do for him from a performance perspective. He’s all about putting in the work to be the best player he can be, and that’s what we do best – fuel athlete performance.”
“Gatorade has been in my life and the locker room throughout my entire life. I’ve seen how important fuelling and hydration are to my performance,” Williamson once told Forbes. “I like the vision they have for the small things I can do to increase my performance. The smallest things can add up and become something great.”
Zion signed a five-year endorsement deal with Mountain Dew in October 2019.
Mountain Dew teamed up with Ceaux Artwork to bring Zion’s vision to life and create the “Zanos Mode” basketball court in Stewart Park, South Carolina. “Playing high school basketball at Spartanburg Day School is what helped put me on the map – so it’s been fun to team up with my new partner Mountain Dew and Ceaux Young to make this mural happen,” said Williamson.
Williamson also has an exclusive trading-card agreement in place with Panini America. Panini is the world’s largest licensed sports and entertainment collectables company and the exclusive trading card manufacturer of the NBA, NBA Players and college basketball.
Zion’s first officially licensed autograph trading cards appeared in Panini America’s 2019 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball released in September 2019.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Zion and his team to deliver exclusive trading cards and autograph trading cards to fans and collectors that will uniquely chronicle his landmark rookie season and for the start of his NBA career while adding incredible value to our entire product roster,” said Mark Warsop, CEO Panini America.
Williamson has also teamed up with SLAM for an exclusive NFT collection. The SLAM x ZION collection includes two iconic magazine covers and the first-ever digital basketball. The collection includes two past SLAM magazine covers featuring Williamson — the SLAM 222 Future Issue, shot at Duke immediately before he announced his eligibility for the NBA Draft, and SLAM 228, which was captured in New Orleans just before the restart of the 2019-20 NBA season.
The digital offerings come in four limited-edition tiers — Basic, Gold, Gold Autographed, and a 1-of-1 Platinum Autographed.
“I’m excited to partner with SLAM for the first-ever NFT cover and digital basketballs,” said Williamson. “Through this drop, we hope to deepen our connection with basketball fans, while creating a unique opportunity for them to get in on the action and own a piece of history.”
Zion Williamson signed a three-year endorsement deal with NBA 2K—a series of basketball simulation video games developed and published by 2K Games—in September 2019. “I’m there as a player. That’s going to take some getting used to. This is not normal. I can’t even put it into words. I’m honoured.” Williamson said. His rookie rating (81) in the game was even higher than LeBron James’ rookie rating (78) from NBA 2K04.
On March 13, 2020, Williamson pledged to pay for the salaries of all the employees of the Smoothie King Center for 30 days during the suspension of the 2019-20 NBA season, which was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He was one of several basketball players to help the arena workers.
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