Hawkins is probably talking about Luffy, not Zoro.
That's like saying why write One Piece when it's basically 100% chance that Luffy will become pirate king
or why write a fight when we know luffy is going to win
We know some things will happen but it's always interesting to see how they happen
He's talking about both, that's been established for literal years now.
The reason it is not interesting is that literally everyone and anyone seeing a 1% chance prediction on a main character will not be fooled in the slightest. I remember the original speculation about the 1% man when the chapter came out how people were not impressed as they knew it wouldn't lead to anything.
The only way to make it interesting is if you say that it's a 0% chance as that could be a set-up for a moment where the main character defies fate and lives anyway. Giving even the slightest chance of surviving will mean that character will survive.
Even then, it's more than proven at this point that Hawkins was talking about Drake anyway. The anime adding the scene where he states this as explicitly as he possibly can only puts that final nail in the coffin as almost everybody dropped that plot point because of that.
It was meant to help lead Drake to seek an alliance with Luffy and nothing more, it's why he starts talking about hope after fleeing from Queen, Who's Who, and Hawkins.