The wait for Zion Williamson is still being measured in weeks instead of days as the New Orleans Pelicans battle for playoff positioning down the stretch of the season.
The star forward re-aggravated a hamstring injury that has kept him out since Jan. 2, Pelicans GM David Griffin told reporters on Sunday, and he'll miss multiple weeks from the All-Star break, which runs from Feb. 17-19. Griffin said Williamson had progressed to 3-on-3 work in his rehab, and that's where the re-injury occurred.
"It’s nothing he did wrong to bring this about. He was very diligent in the process and it is what it is," Griffin said. "Unfortunately it’s an injury that’s tricky and hard to navigate.”
It's a painful swing for the Pelicans, with optimism for a speedy return tempered in recent days with head coach Willie Green indicating that Williamson wouldn't be ready prior to the break, and that he wouldn't participate in the annual NBA showcase, for which he was named a starter. Without Williamson and fellow star Brandon Ingram for a majority of January, the Pelicans were in freefall, dropping 10 consecutive games at one point.
Ingram has returned from a foot injury and a three-game win streak helped stem the bleeding and push the Pels back to No. 7 in the conference. But that positivity was marred by an ugly loss to the Cavaliers on Friday night and they now sit at 29-28 with 25 games to play.
Williamson has been a star in the 29 games he's seen action this season, with averages of 26 points, 7 rebounds and 4.6 assists. The Pelicans went 17-12 in those games, and have gone 12-16 without him. His absence is made all the more frustrating by his NBA history to date, which has been equal parts dominant and unavailable. Williamson's career began with a knee injury that limited his rookie season to just 24 games. He appeared in 61 games during the 2020-'21 season, though that year was marked by a COVID pause and ended with a disappointing showing in the NBA's Orlando bubble. He never took the floor during the 2021-'22 season as he recovered from a foot injury.
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The question will now become whether the rest of the roster can continue to push toward the playoffs without Williamson. If they can continue their recent winning ways, New Orleans is well within reach of some of the top seeds, sitting just 3.5 games back of the Kings in No. 3. But that could easily fall the other direction as well, with just a 3 game cushion on the Lakers at No. 13. The top 10 seeds qualify for the postseason, with seeds 7-10 participating in a play-in tournament.
“I think it’s a blessing for our team … that we know we can be really good. We know that we’ve done this before and we understand what the next-man-up mentality means," Griffin said. "This team has proven they can be very good exactly as they’re constructed now. Obviously Josh [Richardson] is a new piece of that, but I mean this group as a whole has achieved quite a bit together and they believe in one another. So I think the important thing is, we’re all very disappointed for Z, his teammates are disappointed for him, but we know what’s at stake and I think everybody knows what comes next.”
The Pelicans are back in action on Monday when they visit the Oklahoma City Thunder, and head into the All-Star break following an always-intriguing road showdown with the L.A. Lakers on Wednesday.