Zion Williamson made his return for the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday after a 27-game absence with a bum hamstring. He looked great. For starters, he clearly kept himself in shape while he was out, which is no small matter after two months of relative inactivity. He could have ballooned. He didn’t. In fact, he appeared to be about as slim as he’s looked in a long time, and it showed in his bounce and overall athleticism.
The Pelicans lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves, 107-97, but who cares. Now 7-30, New Orleans’ season is over at this point. Two things matter more than anything else between now and April: Can the Pelicans find a trade for Brandon Ingram, and can Williamson stay healthy the rest of the way and reinstall some organizational confidence that he’s a player to continue to building around?
With Williamson, the ability is abundantly obvious. He finished with 22 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals on 9-of-15 shooting. The Pelicans were plus-8 in his 28 minutes.
Williamson is still nearly impossible to keep from getting to his left hand. His downhill force when he does so is practically unstoppable. He pushed in transition and still jumps out of the gym, as evidenced by blocking a Rudy Gobert shot at its peak, ripping down an in-traffic offensive rebound and scoring the put-back for his first bucket, and this 50-foot alley-oop dunk in the first quarter.
Then there was this 360 piece on one of his three steals later on.
Here’s a full look at Williamson’s highlights:
With Zion back, what comes next for the Pelicans?
So Williamson’s shape and performance are the good news. The bad news is we’ve seen this story before, and to this point it has just never resulted in anything substantial for the Pelicans. It hasn’t always been on account of Williamson’s inconsistent health; there have been other injuries at terrible times.
But Williamson is the franchise in New Orleans and the simple truth is the franchise is failing.
It’s failing to the point, in fact, that trading Williamson has become a legitimate topic of conversation. And one of main reasons it’s not an even hotter topic is nobody is quite sure what anyone would even give up to get him, which is really saying something for player of such tremendous and unique abilities.
Every time Williamson puts together a decent streak of health, like when he played 70 games last season, he ends up hurt, like when he was dominating the Lakers in last year’s play-in game until he tore his hamstring in the fourth quarter and that was the end of that. This is the seventh game he’s played this season. It’s January, if you haven’t noticed.
So once again, New Orleans will get its hopes up with the way Williamson played on Tuesday night, but the sad fact is we are simply back at the beginning at the depressing cycle of Zion. He plays great, gets hurt, sits out, comes back strong, everyone gets excited, then he goes down again.
Everyone will continue to hope that somehow this is the time the cycle ends because Williamson is so electric and the Pelicans and the league at large benefit so much from him being on the court and in top shape. But I wouldn’t bet much on that being the case. There is just too much evidence suggesting this will be another short-lived stint of health, so let’s enjoy it while we can.
