Zion Williamson’s future with the New Orleans Pelicans has seemed uncertain in recent years, and it looks like we might have now seen him play his last game for the franchise. Team insider Shamit Dua reports that Pelicans ownership would want Joe Dumars to trade Williamson if he becomes their lead basketball executive.
“Since it looks like all the rumors are coming true – the final bit of intel have on this whole situation is that ownership will mandate Dumars to keep Willie Green and trade Zion. This is what I have heard.”
This 2025 offseason looks set to be one full of changes for the Pelicans. They fired their head of basketball operations, David Griffin, on Monday and now want his potential replacement to get rid of the team’s biggest star.
NBA insider Shams Charania reported that Dumars is a serious frontrunner to become the lead basketball executive for the Pelicans. His first order of business, if he gets the job, could well be to find a good deal for Williamson.
It would have seemed unthinkable when Williamson was entering the NBA in 2019 that a team would want to get rid of him six years later. He was one of the most hyped prospects in recent history after dominating for Spartanburg Day School and then Duke.
The Pelicans would have been thanking their lucky stars when they surprisingly won the NBA Draft Lottery in 2019. They had just a 6% chance (tied for seventh-most) to get the first pick and were going to draft this incredible talent who would change their fortunes. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite pan out that way.
Williamson tore his meniscus during a preseason game in 2019, and that seemed to justify the concerns surrounding his health before the draft. He put up incredible averages of 22.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.7 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game as a rookie, but only featured 24 times for the Pelicans.
Williamson played 61 games in his sophomore season, which led to some optimism regarding his long-term health, but that wouldn’t last for long. He suffered a Jones fracture in the 2021 offseason and ended up missing the entire 2021-22 season.
That was a huge blow to Williamson and the Pelicans, and things weren’t about to get better either. He only managed to play 29 games in the 2022-23 season before a hamstring injury sidelined him for the rest of the campaign.
You wondered at that point if he’d ever go through a season without an injury, and it looked like 2023-24 was going to be that. He played 70 games for the Pelicans, but then suffered a hamstring injury in the Play-In Tournament against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Williamson staying healthy for much of that season brought renewed hope for this 2024-25 campaign, but that was dashed soon enough. Another hamstring problem led to him missing much of the first half of the season, and a back issue sidelined him at the end of it.
Williamson featured in just 30 games this season, which meant he has played in only 214 games since being drafted in 2019. Simply put, that’s terrible. The two-time All-Star has impressive career averages of 24.7 points, 6.6 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.0 steals, and 0.6 blocks per game, but lacks the best ability, which is availability.
It’s not a shock that the Pelicans might be open to parting ways, considering how often Williamson has been sidelined by injury. Several teams could reportedly be interested, and they might be thinking this is a risk worth taking. If the 24-year-old somehow stays relatively healthy in the future, he’d be an incredible asset. That’s a big if, though.
