Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
I know this has been said a million times but it somehow keeps not influencing the discussion.
Zion's contract is set up with a bunch of non-guaranteed money in it that relies on both him hitting weight/body fat %age numbers, and games played. If Zion is injured severely enough going forward (this is the first year of the new contract) to legitimately impact winning, his money owed drops precipitously to the point where, if it's truly apparent that he will never be healthy, he could even conceivably be just cut without that much salary drama.
This is why it's not a serious roll of the dice. If you keep Zion, and he plays, you have an MVP talent. If you keep Zion and he never gets it together you can cut him for basically nothing. If you trade him while his value is low and then he plays, you just gave up an MVP level talent for crumbs. It's very little risk, very high reward to keep him.