The New Orleans Pelicans are a team completely in disarray. A third of the way into the 2024-25 NBA season, they sit at just 5-22, firmly at the bottom of the Western Conference standings and a full game behind the 14th-seeded Utah Jazz. If they had come into the year looking to tank, that'd be a different story, but the Pels were hoping to make a deep playoff run after trading for All-Star guard Dejounte Murray in the offseason, just for their entire campaign to be completely derailed by injuries.
Not only are they struggling on the court, but New Orleans has no idea what the future of their franchise will be. They've reportedly made everyone on the team available for trade outside of a few designated young prospects that they'd like to build around moving forward.
Believe it or not, that short list of franchise building blocks no longer contains Zion Williamson. The sixth-year star forward has again succumbed to the nasty bite of the injury bug. He's only appeared in six games so far this season and is out indefinitely with a left hamstring strain that's kept him on the sidelines since the first week of November. No matter what happens with Zion and the Pelicans moving forward, any suggestion that the team waives him outright is completely ludicrous.
No, the Pelicans will not be waiving Zion Williamson
Let me preface this by saying that I know the fact that I'm even writing this article is ridiculous. Why on Earth would New Orleans ever waive Zion Williamson? Why is that even an idea worth mentioning?
Well, it's because of his unique contract. Due to his injury history and relatively shaky conditioning, the Pelicans insured themselves when they signed Zion to his five-year, $197 million contract extension. Part of their deal made it so that if Zion missed a certain amount of games in the 2022-23 season, the last three years of his deal become non-guaranteed. Those three years start next season.
So, yes, New Orleans could theoretically waive Zion at the end of the league year and free themselves from the remaining three years and $126.5 million owed to him. The longer that he remains on the roster, the more money gets guaranteed to him.
If they waived him this summer, they'd free up nearly $40 million in cap space. But they're not going to do that. Why? Because it makes absolutely zero sense.
For starters, waiving a $40 million contract doesn't automatically give a team $40 million in cap space to work with in free agency. If New Orleans signs Ingram to an extension or winds up trading him for a similarly salaried player, they'll already be over the cap for next season. That's before accounting for any in-house free agents they might keep or the incoming rookies from the 2025 NBA Draft. It's highly unlikely that the Pelicans would have a max contract slot even if they did waive Zion.
Secondly, even if they had a bunch of cap space, what would New Orleans even do with it? The Pelicans aren't exactly a premier free-agent destination and finagling a star player out of $126.5 million won't make them any more desirable a place to play. Also, unless players like LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, and Kyrie Irving opt out of their player options for next year, this summer's free agent class is going to be extremely weak.
Lastly, if the team really wanted to get rid of Zion, they would just trade him away. "But what if they wanted to create cap space?" They could easily find a way to swap him for an equal amount of expiring contracts to free up the money after this season, especially if that was their only goal. They could at least get some kind of draft compensation or a few fliers on young prospects that way. Waiving Zion Williamson would truly be a baffling move.