If you want to read through all the tweets Zion Williamson’s alleged girlfriend tweeted after he posed for photos yesterday at a baby shower celebrating the child of he and a different girlfriend, we will link to them in a moment. If you would like to read through those from the different girlfriend, we will also link to those. For fair warning: Some of the tweets are sexually graphic, and both women seem to be sex workers (it’s less clear with the pregnant one), so if you want the details on this smutty situation, you’re going to have to wade through the extraneous smut which accompanies it. We’re just here to talk about which one made Zion Williamson fat. Back to that in a moment.
Here’s the alleged girlfriend who isn’t known to be pregnant: Moriah Mills. The tweets start at 4:08 PM EDT yesterday, June 6th.
Here’s the girlfriend who is pregnant: Rose. She hasn’t tweeted much (except what seems to be a confirmation that a woman in an old fight video is her), but she did change her Twitter bio to describe herself as “The Most Hated (Baby Mama) on social media.”
Is it weird for us to be talking about this? Oh yeah. Definitely weird. I’m very uncomfortable. But everyone seems to be a willing participant, and The Bachelor is super popular, so I think it’s only right that we give this the same attention, and I *know* all those podcasts playing in the Starbucks drive-through line aren’t covering it.
Also, we want to know which one made Zion Williamson fat. So let’s keep it moving.
The quick version of the situation, if you just want to keep up in a conversation with your buddy who *really* wants to talk about this, is this:
- Yesterday, Rose posted pictures from a baby shower/gender reveal for “Baby Williamson.” Zion was in the photos.
- Today, after a few more restrained tweets last night, Moriah Mills began tweeting at Zion Williamson, excoriating him not for cheating on her (“I know their will be other women but didn’t expect you to get these hoes pregnant”) but for, uh, getting someone else pregnant and then supporting the child? Potentially leaving her for the other woman? It seems like those are the things. She did say, “The bill was too high so you had to scrap for crumbs when you couldn’t see me or I was busy,” which makes me wonder whether a girlfriend is still a girlfriend if you have to pay for her, but it’s possible Mills is making things up. It’s possible Zion Williamson is a victim here, in some sense. We’re still going to talk about his weight, though. He can talk about mine if he wants to. The Soup Streak didn’t work, and I’m not afraid to own that.
- It is unclear if Zion Williamson will be staying with one woman or the other or neither. Mills is projecting confidence (and claiming she may also be pregnant), but she’s also asking for a DNA test and saying some very mean things about the woman with whom Zion Williamson just posed for pictures at a baby shower. You would hope Zion Williamson would raise the child he fathered. I will say that.
Now, the part that made us blog about this. Among all the rest, Mills tweeted these two things (excerpted from full tweets to edit out the freaky stuff):
“I motivated u to get back in shape…”
“I told you was gonna be the next king next to lebron I motivated you *smile crying emoji* *smile crying emoji* you (baby mama) is the reason you gained weight…”
Alright! Now we’re in our wheelhouse.
The topic of Zion Williamson’s weight has been debated widely for five years. Five years ago, when Williamson was an incoming freshman at Duke, basketball bloggers and podcasters began arguing the topic of whether Zion Williamson was fat. My perspective is skewed, so maybe Mark Titus wasn’t at the center of the debate, but I remember our friend Mark Titus being at the center of the debate. That’s certainly where I heard about it the most.
Zion Williamson, one of the most hyped college basketball recruits of the 2010s, was a heavy guy, and it was unclear how heavy he was. If you looked at him from one angle, or on one day, he might look muscular. From another? On another? Fat. This feels mean, and it probably was and is mean, but in a way it was a compliment to Williamson that the debate was happening. For one thing, we were all in agreement that Zion was an incredible athlete and a sensational basketball talent, two things that are way more impressive if the person in question is fat. For another, it was a good debate. The answer was debatable. This debate never happened with Big Baby Davis. The topic grew the legs it did because most of us could see both sides. Zion Williamson was completing the James Harden trade-forcing transition back and forth within weeks, and he was also doing mind-bending physical things on the basketball floor. It was more fascinating than anything. Were some people fat-shaming Zion Williamson? Probably. But most of us were just in a state of wonder.
The topic tailed Williamson into his professional career. It popped up peripherally when he tore his meniscus before his rookie season. It popped up peripherally on the other side when the Pelicans posted a photo of him looking absolutely shredded heading into the NBA bubble (our friend Titus was again involved in the virality here, jokingly imitating the lines strength coaches feed to the press only to see his “quote” taken seriously by the sports media aggregation machine). Then, ahead of Williamson’s third season, the guy got hurt again. This time, it got bad.
When Williamson broke his foot prior to the 2021–22 season, he did gain weight. This was undisputable. It came to a head in December, when another friend of ours—an innocent MAC blogger whose career got messed up by people turning on him—tweeted a photo he took of Williamson on the sidelines. In the photo, Williamson looked the biggest he’d ever looked, and the debate took off like never before, growing large enough that our friend was accused by some of photoshopping when all the poor dude did was take a photo of Zion Williamson and immediately tweet it out, probably to show whether he was wearing a boot or not. Meanwhile, reports swirled that Williamson was missing rehab workouts and sleeping during team meetings, and the conversation about Williamson’s weight turned from curiosity to criticism. Before that December, the “Is Zion fat?” debate was all fun and games. That month, it turned to a question of not only what Williamson’s weight might mean for his basketball, but what was causing it, and what those causes said about Williamson’s dedication.
Eventually, Williamson ended up missing that entire season, and last summer, the following offseason, he received the rookie max extension from the Pelicans, signing him with New Orleans through 2028. In the contract? The now-infamous fat clause. It was reported (and hasn’t to my knowledge been credibly disputed) that the sum of Williamson’s weight and body fat percentage couldn’t exceed 295, or else he’d lose guaranteed money off the deal. Predictably—even though this wasn’t the first fat clause in NBA history—this exploded in the media. Goodness gracious, did it explode.
Then, there’s today.
If the first era of “Is Zion fat?” was curiosity, and the second era focused on injury risk, and the third era centered around concern about his effort, this fourth era is about which of Williamson’s alleged lovers was better for his physical health. The question we’re trying to answer today is whether Moriah Mills helped Williamson lose weight and whether Rose made him gain it, as Mills alleges.
We don’t have the answers to this. We don’t have a timeline of Williamson’s dating history, and from the sounds of it, there were perhaps multiple relationships going on at once, making it difficult to isolate for that variable. We also don’t have a record of Williamson’s weigh-ins, and after what happened to our friend the MAC blogger, pictures of Williamson in the wild have become less readily available. It’s a guessing game, really. But chances are, many in the Pelicans office are working overtime this week managing this public relations situation. Chances also are that at least one front office employee is trying to figure out what this means for Williamson’s weight.
Shaka Smart Got Extended
Marquette issued a press release yesterday afternoon sharing that Shaka Smart has been extended through the 2029–30 season. Great move by Marquette. When you have a Shaka Smart, you lock him down as long as you can. Texas could learn a thing or two.
Armando Bacot Deleted the Tweet
Yesterday, in the wake of Simeon Wilcher’s wise decision not to play basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels, Armando Bacot tweeted, “Running from the grind,” which is a hilarious thing for a supposed leader to tweet when said leader couldn’t keep his team aligned enough to play in the NIT without risking punches being thrown in the huddle in the first round. Also a hilarious thing for Bacot to tweet given what Bacot’s effort looked like playing what was mostly a mid-major conference schedule. Also a hilarious thing for Bacot to later delete, because what does that do for him? You already sent it, brother. And it was short enough to be easily quoted.
One nice thing about college basketball players being so old now is that it’s more obvious when they should know better. Bacot was so likable after 2022. Then he had to deal with real adversity.
Luis Robert Is Hurting Joe Kelly
Joe Kelly took a no-hitter into the seventh inning last night only to see it land, like the fly ball carrying it, at Luis Robert’s feet. It was the second Robert misplay to find its way into Joe Kelly’s earned runs column in the last week and a half, with Kelly’s final line last night including one inning of work, one walk, two strikeouts, and the earned run.
There’s a direct explanation for this, which is that Luis Robert is trying to tank Joe Kelly’s trade value so Joe Kelly will be in his life for longer, but it’s getting exhausting. Joe Kelly’s got a 5.50 ERA over the last two seasons and just a 2.83 FIP. That’s ridiculously bad luck. That’s ridiculously bad defense. And dammit, it’s making my job of fighting people online about how good Joe Kelly is a whole lot harder than it needs to be.
The game’s been canceled tonight because Canada blew its smoke onto New York in retaliation for everything we’ve probably done to Canada’s forests over the years. Fair is fair.
Can the Cubs Get Super Lucky With a Guy?
Maybe this is Christopher Morel, but I’m looking at Jaime Barria’s stats ahead of tonight’s game in Anaheim and I’m wondering if the Cubs can take a fringe prospect who hasn’t done much over his first five years of MLB action and turn him into a 1.59 ERA guy. Something like that would be nice sometime.
