Zion Williamson wasn’t the only thing that shook the rafters in his debut for the New Orleans Pelicans, as an earthquake cut the rookie’s first game short.
With the NBA season currently on hold we’ll begin looking at the ten most important games of the New Orleans Pelicans’ season.
July 5th Las Vegas, the stage is set for a match-up of Zion Williamson vs. RJ Barrett, picks one and three in the 2019 NBA Draft respectively. How would Zion hold up to the scrutiny of being selected first overall? Would RJ be the one to bring life back to the Mecca?
While this game did not happen during the regular season, events that occurred during the game would have a major impact on the 2019-20 season. The ESPN broadcast team (Dorris Burke and Mark Jones) noted that over 1,000 media credentials had been handed out for this event.
One weird part about this game was the Anthony Davis was still technically on the Pelicans at the time.
This is because the Lakers were still pursuing Kawhi Leonard in free agency and needed to keep the possibility of a max slot open. This means that while Josh Hart and Lonzo Ball were in attendance they were still on the Lakers.
Because the AD trade wasn’t finalized, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Jaxson Hayes were also not on the Pelicans during this game and wouldn’t play their first game with the team until July 8th.
The game was competitive even though the Knicks’ lineup featured five players who all averaged at least 11 minutes in the regular season (RJ, Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, Allonzo Trier and Kadeem Allen).
The New Orleans Pelicans had just five players on this roster play in the NBA this year (Zion, Frank Jackson, Kenrich Williams and Zylan Cheatham) and Christian Wood who spent the regular season with Detroit.
The referees ended this game with just under eight minutes to play due to an earthquake that caused the ground to move under the announcers’ seats and the scoreboard and speakers to shake above the court.
But the damage was done to the New Orleans Pelicans long before the earthquake struck; in the second quarter Zion hurt his knee in a collision. At the time the injury was not expected to be serious and there was hope he would return for later summer league games.
We know now that injury and the surgery that was required after caused Zion to miss 45 games in the regular season.
Who had the best game?
The game itself was a duel between Frank Jackson and Allonzo Trier, each going for 20+ points. Jackson had an especially impressive game; to go along with his game high 30 points, he had three rebounds, two blocks and shot 64.7% from the field including 3-3 from three point range in his 31 minutes.
It was nice to see Jackson in control of the team and game after missing all of the 2018-19 season with injuries to his foot. It was just summer league but he showed the potential to be a spark plug with the reserve units.
It was obvious early on that the New Orleans Pelicans were trying to force their offense through Zion and get him started. The very first offensive play the Pelicans ran was an attempted alley-oop to Zion (he was fouled). It really wasn’t until he got hurt that the team settled down and played good basketball.