Best quotes from Pelicans organization about Zion Williamson’s return

Zion Williamson is about to make his much anticipated NBA debut tonight and members of the New Orleans Pelicans are sharing their excitement.

Tonight is the night in New Orleans. In just a handful of hours, Zion Williamson will play his first regular-season game of NBA basketball.

Tipping-off against the San Antonio Spurs from the Smoothie King Center at 8:30 p.m. CT, a loud New Orleans crowd is certain to be full of energy from the opening jump.

Over the course of his very short career, Zion has become one of the most hyped prospects in the history of the game. In fact, the 19-year-old rookie is already drawing more Google searches than the rest of the team’s starting lineup combined, per Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer.

Since the rookie’s four-game preseason run, where he averaged 23.3 points and 6.5 rebounds while shooting 71.4% from the floor, there’s been a lot of intrigue about how it would look when the rookie finally hits the regular season floor.

Considering Zion Williamson showed poise battling respectable bigs like Rudy Gobert during the preseason stretch, there was already a lot to thrill from the exhibition tapes.

While people outside of the organization are clamoring for the debut of the rookie forward, members inside the New Orleans Pelicans’ organization are singing their own songs of excitement in recent comments.

Rookie teammate Nickeil Alexander-Walker speaks on Zion, the person

Both drafted in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft to the New Orleans Pelicans, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Zion Williamson became pretty good friends this summer.

After the draft, both young players, in addition to rookie center Jaxson Hayes, spent a lot of their summer in New Orleans, acclimated to the city, organization, and NBA lifestyle as a whole.

On his teammate and friend, Nickeil Alexander-Walker gave a glowing review of Williamson.

"“God gave it to the right person,” Nickeil Alexander-Walker said to Christian Clark of Nola.com. “You couldn’t have chose a better person to have what he has. The way he handles himself. The way he carries himself. How he moves as if he knows who he is at the end of the day. You’re not going to tell Zion who he is. There’s no way he’s going to feel moved by what the followers say — zero or 4 million.”"

Certainly, those who’ve watched Williamson play at any level so far have noticed his sheer basketball skills, but perhaps less know about the incredible person.

Alexander-Walker gives his friend a stunning endorsement, noting that it’s far more than the sheer athleticism of Zion that makes him great, it’s the overall attitude and work ethic from such a young player with such high expectations.

David Griffin explains Zion’s incredible athletic build and rejects the notion that Williamson was hurt due to his lack-of-fitness

Since Zion Williamson went down with an injury just before the start of the 2019-2020 regular season, the Pelicans organization has had to be on the defensive as national media members ran wild with speculation about the rookie’s unfortunate injury.

Time and time again, Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, David Griffin has been willing to explain the rookie’s physicality, explaining that his size is rare and captivating, not from any sort of work or weight issue.

"”Yeah so, we’ve already talked about the concept of ‘teaching him how to walk again’, which is sort of preposterous. Really it’s just the whole kinetic chain. You’re addressing everything. You’re addressing ankle flexion, then knees, then hips, then back, and everything else. I think what’s happened is that his overall kinetic chain is in a much better position, and I think he’s more flexible. And when you make someone more flexible you have to give them the strength to control that flexibility. It’s been a dance, it has been, but he’s now able to do some things physically that he wasn’t able to do before, particularly because of the flexion in his ankles and his hips,” David Griffin told reporters last Wednesday when announcing Williamson’s debut."

While Zion Williamson seems to need more refinement in his stride and landing patterns as he continues to develop in the NBA, the Pelicans organization seems pretty optimistic about the forward’s long term health.

Fortunately for the Pelicans, they got the chance to hire Aaron Nelson to lead the team’s training staff, a man whose body of work has prolonged careers of some of the great NBA players of all time.

Lonzo Ball speaks on getting Zion Williamson in pick-and-roll sets

When the New Orleans Pelicans finally formalized the Anthony Davis trade with the Los Angeles Lakers in July after winning the NBA Draft Lottery in May, one of the first things fans were excited to see was the pick-and-roll play between Lonzo Ball and Zion Williamson.

While it’s taken until today those looks to arrive in the regular season, the two finally have a chance to combine on some crazy attempts at the rim.

"“Our games just complement each other. [Zion Williamson] gets out on the break. He’s a big, physical body. He screens and roll, I come off for the screen and pass. You know, we’ll help each other a lot,” Lonzo Ball said to media members earlier this month."

Pairing well in concept and in preseason execution, Zion and Lonzo are almost certain to create some moments that’ll have social media buzzing.

Still needing to play within the offense, it’ll be important for the Pelicans to not overuse on these sets at this point, as the team still has nice roll men in Derrick Favors and Jaxson Hayes ready to catch looks at any point around the rim.

Head coach Alvin Gentry gives levels expectations for Zion’s debut

Fairly, Gentry wanted to make sure the game doesn’t get lost in the excitement surrounding Williamson’s first game.

Considering the team is in a tight battle for the eighth seed in the Western Playoffs and they’re playing a Spurs team also in the mix, it’s important that the team stays focused on the game at hand.

"“One, it’s going to be a circus and everyone knows that,” Gentry said. “What we have to do is focus on the task at hand and that is playing a really good San Antonio team … It is going to be good to get him out there. I think the big thing for us is we just need to get him out there so all of this goes away and then we can start to figure out rotations and how we are going to play and things we are going to do,” head coach Alvin Gentry told Andrew Lopez of ESPN."

Managing Zion Williamson’s load as he makes the jump into the team’s rotations is going to be a crucial part of the rest of the season.

We already know that Zion is on a soft minutes restriction and won’t immediately be a member of the starting lineup. Seemingly, the team is doing a really good job making sure the pressure isn’t too high for the rookie star.

Tonight, we finally get to see Zion Williamson take flight, which means some of the best quotes about the debut will probably come out after the game. For now, we’re just looking forward to seeing the first night of what could potentially be an incredible career.