It appears that the Zion Williamson era is coming to an end soon for the New Orleans Pelicans. Earlier in the 2024-25 NBA season, we received some real noise surrounding Zion's future with the team for the first time in his career. There has always been hullabaloo drummed up NBA media and talking heads, insisting that NOLA was too small of a market for Big Z or proposing fake trades to get him off of the Pelicans, but this past year revealed some legitimate indications that the sun was setting on his time in the Bayou.
New Orleans lost their entire season to injuries. While this year, it wasn't necessarily Zion's health that cost them their campaign, losing a whole year to injuries after dealing with Williamson's struggles to stay available was just adding another straw to the camel's back. As a result, the Pelicans reportedly marked nearly their entire roster available for trade ahead of the 2025 deadline, including Zion.
While he stayed in New Orleans through the deadline, his future with the team still wasn't secured. The Pelicans could have been simply waiting until the offseason to field better offers. Now, recent developments have revealed that he's more likely to be traded this summer than ever before. It’s rumored that Pelicans ownership hired new Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars on the condition that he trade Zion. It's not definite, as the same reporter who suggested that there was a mandate to trade Williamson also stated that Dumars is determined to try to mend the bridge between Zion and the franchise. I, along with many of the Pelicans' faithful, will be hoping that Dumars succeeds in his endeavor to keep Williamson in New Orleans. However, I have to admit that trading him would solve at least one major issue for the team.
Trading Zion Williamson would clear up a major logjam at power forward
The power forward is a dying position in today's NBA. The low-post bruisers who crashed the glass, played tough-nosed physical defense, and regularly popped face-up midrange jumpers are nearly extinct. Instead, more and more teams are just playing another wing to maximize their spacing in this era of positionless basketball. Many power forwards of the past would be relegated to center today (not you, Anthony Davis — you should be a center in every era).
Don't tell that to the New Orleans Pelicans, though. Amid all of their roster flaws, the one area they're definitely not lacking in is power forward. Not only is their franchise player Zion Williamson a power forward, but he's one of the few players in the league today who should only play one position.
Then, they have PLENTY of depth behind him for the four spot. The Pelicans currently have 13 players signed on for next season. Of those 13, five of them can play power forward: Zion, Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones, Kelly Olynyk, and Karlo Matkovic. Arguably, all of them would be maximized at that position.
New Orleans has a highly valuable lottery pick coming this summer. Depending on where they draw, they could wind up with another power forward like Duke's Cooper Flagg or Rutgers' Ace Bailey. TMIII, Herb, Olynyk, and Karlo are all versatile enough to play other positions successfully, but there's no doubt that the Pelicans have more power forwards than they know what to do with. That gives them at least one justifiable reason to trade Zion this summer.