Zion Williamson is lighter now. And for once, he’s not carrying the weight of the world.

In 2016, Bryce Lanning packed up his life to follow a teenager.

That year, Lanning got a call from a videographer he worked with at EliteMixtapes. The videographer was at an AAU tournament in Suwanee, Georgia, where a 15-year-old was causing pandemonium inside the gymnasium with his dunks. Toward the end of the tournament, the kid had thrown down a two-handed alley-oop so hard, he caused his opponent to crumple to the ground.

His name? Zion Williamson.

“When I got the video, I knew it was really different stuff,” Lanning said. “I looked him up and saw he was in South Carolina. He was ranked No. 12 in the country by ESPN. I knew right away that he was someone I had to get a camera on.”

Later that summer, Lanning moved from Wake Forest, North Carolina, to Charlotte, a 2½ hour drive. Lanning had friends there, and there was plenty of basketball talent in the area for him to cover.

But the biggest reason Lanning relocated was to capture as many of Williamson’s highlights as possible. Charlotte was 70 miles east of Spartanburg Day School, the tiny private school Williamson attended.

“At the time, we were kind of looking for that next prospect, that next player we could put on the channel,” Lanning said. “He was clearly that guy right away.”

Lanning supported himself full-time by operating EliteMixtapes. He would not be the last media member to pick up and move, to follow Williamson and chronicle his basketball exploits.

Williamson has been in the public eye since he was a teenager. He was an internet sensation who became so big as a high school junior, the most popular rapper on the planet rocked his jersey in an Instagram post. At Duke, Williamson’s games caused ratings records. And after being drafted No. 1 overall in 2019, the NBA’s TV partners awarded the New Orleans Pelicans — the team that plays in the league’s second-smallest media market — 30 national TV games.

Even though he has missed more games than he has played with the Pelicans, Williamson is already a bigger-than-life economic engine — for the city, the team, the league and countless others. Why? Because he’s just that good. His star is just that bright.

But the glare of the spotlight has been intense. While Williamson managed it well at Duke, his NBA career so far has included more downs than ups. Williamson was named an All-Star in his second season. He has also missed 141 games because of lower body injuries.

Headed into his fourth season, a fully healthy Williamson has started to take his fitness seriously. He spent eight weeks before training camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he focused on slimming down. Williamson’s private chef wrote in an Instagram post that Williamson dropped more than 30 pounds.

“I’ve learned to appreciate this process,” Williamson said. “I can never really put it into words all the adversity, all the cons.”

‘Zion had his own mind’

Thirty-seven seconds into a nationally televised game against North Carolina in February 2019, Williamson tried to plant off his left foot. His Kyrie 4 sneaker split apart like a banana peel. Williamson left the game with a knee sprain.

By the time the financial markets closed the following day, Nike’s stock had dropped 1.1%, which sliced approximately $1.1 billion off the sportswear giant’s market capitalization.

While Williamson was recovering from injury, some members of his inner circle pushed for him to sit out for the rest of the college season. It was a foregone conclusion that Williamson would be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft, no matter which team got the pick.

Williamson decided to play anyway. He returned in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament and scored 29 points on 13-of-13 shooting in a win over Syracuse.

That season, Duke’s ratings on ESPN shot up by more than 30%. Duke’s first two NCAA tournament games were the most-watched first- and second-round tournament games since all games became nationally televised in 2011. While the Blue Devils marched to the Elite Eight, a website called Jersey Champs made more than $156,000 in revenue solely by selling Williamson’s high school jersey.

Piles of money were being made. But Williamson was not able to financially benefit from his own star power at the time — at least above board.

Williamson had amateur status, and the NCAA law allowing athletes to profit from their own name, image and likeness was still more than two years away from going into effect.

“In any element of society, if prices aren’t allowed to freely move, then you are going to wind up with a marketplace that exists parallel to that,” said Rodney Paul, a sports economist at the University of Syracuse.

In his book, “Black Market: An Insider’s Journey Into the High-Stakes World of College Basketball,” Merl Code pulled back the curtain on this parallel marketplace. A former shoe rep with Adidas and Nike, Code wrote that Adidas had provided significant financial support for Williamson’s family while he was in high school. Adidas gave the AAU team Williamson’s parents coached, the South Carolina Supreme, $60,000 for travel expenses.

“In reality, we kept paying for the travel directly,” Code wrote. “So that money basically went into their pockets.”

Williamson shocked the college basketball world when he chose Duke, a Nike school, over Clemson, an Adidas school.

“Zion had his own mind,” Code wrote. “Props to him for that.”

A month after being drafted No. 1, Williamson signed a deal with Jordan Brand. Forbes reported it was a seven-year agreement worth $75 million. It was the richest annual rookie shoe deal in NBA history, according to ESPN.

‘You just gotta roll with it’

In December 2019, the NBA announced that Williamson ranked 15th among all players in jersey sales. Williamson wasn’t even playing. At that time, the season was two months old, and he was sidelined with a torn meniscus in his right knee.

There has never been anyone like Williamson, which is part of his appeal. He is built like an NFL defensive linemen; he has a 45-inch vertical; and he can handle the basketball better than a lot of guards.

“This is a Shaquille O’Neal-type force of nature with a point guard skill set,” veteran NBA coach Rick Carlisle said while he was with the Dallas Mavericks.

That ability is why the Pelicans signed Williamson to a five-year contract extension this summer. The deal is worth $193 million, but Williamson can make as much as $231 million if he makes the All-NBA first team; wins Defensive Player of the Year; or wins MVP.

The deal contains games-played provisions to protect the Pelicans, and it stipulates that Williamson’s weight plus body fat percentage cannot exceed 295. If it does, the amount of guaranteed money the Pelicans owe him can be reduced if he is waived.

Williamson is represented by Creative Artists Agency. However, Lee Anderson, Williamson’s stepfather — not CAA — primarily negotiated Williamson’s contract extension, multiple sources said.

With a healthy Williamson back in the fold, the Pelicans’ goal is to get back to the playoffs and see how far they can go. The team has a dynamic lead guard (CJ McCollum), a forward who can score 25 points in his sleep (Brandon Ingram) and a deep cast of complementary talent. That foundation gives New Orleans a high floor without Williamson, as last spring’s run to the playoffs showed.

But it is Williamson who will determine the team’s ceiling.

Williamson has shed a significant amount of weight since last season ended. He seems lighter emotionally, too. At media day in September, Williamson talked about a shift in mentality that was brought about by listening to The Notorious B.I.G. album “Ready to Die.”

“I’m 22,” Williamson said. “I’ve been through a lot in the past years. Some change. Some things, you know, you wish didn’t happen. But from that album, you just learn that that’s life and things gonna happen and you just gotta roll with it.”

Williamson said after a preseason game against the Miami Heat that he is focused on controlling what he can control. He is a source of great intrigue, and the spotlight on him is not going away anytime soon.

Williamson dealt with pressure as a teenager that few others can relate to.

He was a child star. He is now trying to transition to his next phase as a true face of the NBA.