Please reserve judgment due to the publishing source; this is really a very interesting article about the significant increase in usage of zone defenses league-wide. https://fansided.com/2019/03/05/nba-zone-defense-heat-nets/
In my opinion, due to the defensive 3-second rule, running a zone in the NBA would never work as a full-time defense or in the playoffs. It can be a super effective way to confuse the offense if it is only used on occasion or out of the blue on a random late game possession out of a time out or situations like that. I believe the "success" teams like Miami and Brooklyn are having with it is because of the difficulty to prepare for a zone with minimal time to game plan in the regular season. In a playoff series it will get annihilated. Now for teams that are hovering around .500 maybe that's still better than the alternative of playing straight up but I just don't see it working long term unless it's only broken out a couple plays a game.
Seems to be very well researched article; guy talked to players or coaches from about five teams. Especially for the playoffs I think it is good to throw something different at teams. But Stotts philosophy seems to be to keep it simple.
