In 2019, Zion Williamson and Ja Morant were taken first and second in the NBA Draft. Both came into the league with the immediate ability to create problems that defenses cannot solve, quickly racking up views on social media and endorsement dollars with corporations. Both have become All-Stars, household names, and franchise changers; though injuries have restricted both Zion’s New Orleans Pelicans and Morant’s Memphis Grizzlies, both boast stacked young rosters around their stars with championship potential in the very near future. Both signed mega-sized contract extensions last summer, and through 2028, the two are owed a collective $388 million.

But whether either player signs a second lucrative contract is now very much in question. Despite all the instant glory, there is a stressful cloud of beleaguerment around both—a storm of questions and doubts, an accumulation of failures small and large that has super-invested parties looking eager for release from the dramatic trajectories of these young men, no matter which of their promises may still end up fulfilled.

It has been a while since fresh superstars stumbled in this way. If you’re old enough, you probably associate these kinds of sour second acts with many that we saw in the early and mid-2000’s, when such humbling follies proliferated. The league’s youth has professionalized in the following decade or so, and to an arguably disturbing degree; it is uncanny, in a sometimes upsetting way, to see so many robotic 19-year-olds who’ve put in their ten-thousand hours, which includes extensive media training.

This is not to suggest that what Ja and Zion are up to is refreshing. Morant, who has been suspended for at least 25 games of the 2023-24 season, seems incapable of not flashing guns around braggadociously on social media. His pattern of doing so has begun to look like the self-destructive behavior of a 23-year-old under more pressure than he can handle. Williamson, who the Pelicans are reportedly open to trading away, has been injured for more than half of his career, and is now the subject of an unsavory rumor mill, as a woman with more than a million Twitter followers posts multiple times daily about their strange personal relationship.

Taken together, Williamson and Morant’s current odysseys are a reminder of what, in most cases, is actually likely when a young man of modest origins suddenly acquires heaps of money and fame: nothing good. Morant’s historic parallel is an easy one—Allen Iverson. But to understand Williamson, we might need to get more mythical; think Tom Hanks in Big. He is a gigantic fish-out-of-water, flailing through his own late-adolescent wreckage. As word has it, he was raised in a highly controlled way, which enticed him into the lore of fantastical realms that can be enjoyed indoors—namely Anime. Last year, he appeared at San Diego’s Comic Con to read live from a popular Manga series that he loves.

The transition from enforced imaginative solitude to blank-check worldmaking powers is not one anyone should experience rapidly, and certainly not at an age at which most people are at their dumbest and most reckless. In short time, Williamson has gone from Dr. Strange reader to Dr. Strange. He can manifest whatever desire he likes, and he is. Most media members have declined to describe what this actually means, and this column will be no exception; you can search for information on his personal adventures in less formal internet spaces if you like, but you are advised not to do so on a workplace computer.

Even with all his injury and fitness concerns, Zion was considered an untouchable, never-trade asset by his team and by everyone in the media until this discomfiting public saga began, only two weeks ago. Now that it seems he can be had, for the right price, it’s worth wondering if the reason for this is just how bizarre his extended narrative has become; spooky, unsettling, squeamish. It is one thing—a common one—for a man of his age and means to be in a gross interpersonal mud, but it is another for everyone to be able to see it so clearly, and for his multi-billion dollar organization to thus be in it with him. That shame, more than anything to do with basketball, might motivate his relocation, should it occur.

Morant, his AAU teammate in South Carolina about a decade ago, is not on the market, but whether he clearly commits to cooperating with the NBA’s front office on matters of image may determine how much longer his career lasts. Whether he likes it or not (and it looks as though he doesn’t), how he comports himself is now an important variable in humongous international business deals. 

Both he and Zion must now be more boring, if they want to continue to receive the great rewards of their labor and potential. They are asked to be less obviously two wild young country boys, abruptly given the keys to a global media and entertainment empire. Almost everyone, placed in this crossroads, takes the cleaner and more profitable pathway. Zion and Ja have already made enough money to live however they want to, though, and it remains to be seen if they want more, or just to enjoy the spoils they likely never thought they would have.