NEW ORLEANS — However far the Pelicans make it as far as the Play-In tournament or the playoffs afterward, they’ll likely have to do all of it without Zion Williamson.
The oft-injured All-Star just doesn’t seem to be progressing as hoped, club president David Griffin said Friday, in an interview published on NOLA.com.
Williamson hasn’t been cleared yet to participate in practice and light three-on-three work didn’t yield the hoped for results, Griffin said in the interview.
Williamson’s earliest return would be at some point during a first-round playoff series and that would seem to be optimistic given the amount of time it would take him to work back into playing condition if things were progressing well.
Williamson injured his hamstring on January 2 and was moving toward a return when he re-injured it and went back at least to square one, if not even further back.
“I know it’s very disappointing for everyone. It’s disappointing for him, and it’s disappointing for his teammates,” said Griffin.
Williamson has had an injury-plagued NBA career and the past two seasons it’s become even more of an issue as the team is close to playoff caliber without him and could possibly be a favorite for a deep playoff run with him.
Williamson missed the entire 2021-22 season and watched as the team finished the season with a roar, won two play-in games and pushed Phoenix in the opening series.
This year the team was rolling with Zion, being at or close to the top of the NBA West before he got hurt and settling back into poor play before making a late season run into the play-in again.
Griffin says there hasn’t been another setback, but there also hasn’t been the progression they’d like to see.
“He hasn’t been re-injured. He hasn’t even reported soreness. It’s more of like a hesitancy. I think we went though this before with Brandon Ingram. He said, ‘When I feel like me, I’ll play.’ You can see when someone is trusting it and confident. He’s not in that space right now.”