Zion Williamson is losing minutes as the New Orleans Pelicans are losing games.
The top pick in the 2019 NBA Draft played only 29 total minutes as the Pelicans dropped their initial two games of the NBA bubble restart of the season in Orlando. It’s hard to build up a cadence when continually all through the game.
“It’s very tough, to be honest, because as soon as I start to break that sweat, I look over and that horn is for me and I have to come out the game,” Williamson said. “Also, when I do catch the flow of the game, like I said, that horn goes off and it’s for me.”
Williamson missed 13 days of basketball activities to watch out for a family crisis paving the way to the Pelicans’ first game. They have moved him back with “burst restrictions” in each quarter.
The incongruity is the TV draw of Williamson’s star power apparently is one reason the NBA drew the discretionary line at 22 groups as a component of the restart, ensuring the Pelicans were incorporated.
Williamson said getting disappointed “doesn’t help the situation,” yet spectators have noted he doesn’t appear to have a fabulous time as he did before in his new kid on the block season – a physical issue sidelined him until January, when he returned on a minutes include – or in his one season at Duke.
“It’s still fun, but I guess, like you said, it’s not to that full extent as y’all are used to seeing,” Williamson said. “I’m a competitor. I want to stay on the court. When I’m coming out of the game, my competitive side of me that I want to stay in. I guess that does affect the fun a little bit, but not too much.”
The Pelicans followed the Los Angeles Clippers by 37 after seventy five percent on Saturday, so Williamson sat. Mentor Alvin Gentry said Williamson would have played if the game was close enough.
“Obviously in a 30-point game, I’m not going to stick him back in in those situations even though some people think it would give him an opportunity to be on the floor and play,” Gentry said. “I just didn’t feel like that made sense in that situation.”
The Pelicans face the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday night.
It is an essential game if the Pelicans plan to rescue their odds of getting into a play-in series for the playoffs and pits Williamson against Rookie of the Year most loved Ja Morant.
The amount Williamson plays, however, is impossible to say.
“You just have to be smart in those situations,” Gentry said. “Everyone wants to play and play right now. We try to spend time as coaches and medical people trying to let him understand that this is going to be for the best short term and long term really.”
