New Orleans Pelicans: Don’t expect to see Zion Williamson anytime soon

The season couldn’t have started much worse for Zion Williamson and the New Orleans Pelicans.

After announcing their star had secret foot surgery at the beginning of the offseason, the Pelicans assured fans he’d be back to start the season.

David Griffin used some pedantic wording to claim he didn’t mean at the “beginning” of the season, just sometime during the season, though he didn’t specify which season, or even which sport he was talking about, so who knows what to believe.

This cagey and frankly arrogant approach to dealing with fans has not endeared Griffin to the Pels’ faithful and has left us wondering when or even IF we will see Zion Williamson play this season.

New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson injury update

As usual, the New Orleans Pelicans have been tight-lipped about Zion’s injury, only offering this vague update:

Well, the end of the week came and went and we still haven’t heard if Zion Williamson got his foot scans or whether the results were positive. Something tells me that if they were, we would have heard about it, so silence could be a bad sign in this case.

Also, even if the scans come back clean, Zion is not even running yet, hasn’t played in months and there have been videos circulating in which he looks like he’s in less than prime condition, and that is being nice.

I was hoping Zion would return by the middle of November at home against Memphis, but I think that is a pipe dream at this point.

He’s going to need time to heal, but also to get into proper basketball shape and shake off the rust, so it’s hard to even estimate when we might see Zion Williamson back at full strength.

Until then, the Pelicans are going to to have to try and stay alive in November, which won’t be easy considering 12 of their 16 games are against playoff contenders.

The 2021-22 campaign may come down to the big man’s foot and it might still be awhile before we even know the status, much less when he’ll actually play.