The Pelican SHOULD NOT be building around Zion Williamson anymore!

The Pelican SHOULD NOT be building around Zion Williamson anymore!

It’s time to remind all of you that the New Orleans Pelicans are an abject failure. The satisfaction they had when they won the rigged lottery to take Zion Williamson, not rigged that year, rigged for us to get you in back in the day. And once you earn a nickname, you have that nickname. When you have a player like Zion Williamson who you know is hurt each and every year, but you come in and you’re new to the job, which is Joe Dumars, and you feel like, “Oh, it’s going to be different. I’ve got this.” And then you’re shocked when it’s the same. The New Orleans Pelicans have been waiting for Zion Williamson to play. When he plays, he’s been phenomenal. when he’s not eating himself into oblivion. Zion Williamson, great talent. It’s like in baseball when we look at a guy who throws 100 say, “Oh, you’ve got a live arm. You’ve got a live arm. Oh, you have no pitch ability. You’re empty between the ears. You have no strategy. You have literally no feel for pitching.” But man, you’ve got velocity. We’ll keep in touch. There are times during the season you’re okay with that. You don’t like breaking camp with that though. Zion Williamson, that situation. It’s the same to me. Why is it that we believe that Zion Williamson is not Zion Williamson? Has he not been in the league long enough for Joe Dumar to still double down on Zion and say he’s the face of our franchise? Have you not been paying attention to the reality of what Zion is where he’s played more than 61 games twice in his career? That’s it. Zion Williamson is the one who signed that huge extension that I told you was a complete waste. Except for the fact that the Pelicans have outs based on how much he plays. They even had some of them fat clauses if you remember that. If I’m Joe Dumar’s, listen to me, please. You’ve got to move on from Zion Williamson. He is right now signed for two more years, 86 more million dollars. But you can stop it. You can make that salary not guaranteed and let him go. Reallocate your resources. What you’re doing with Zion is not working. You have been left behind in the Western Conference like you’re in quick sand. If Zion Williamson plays over 41 games this season, last season he played only 30, but if he plays over 41 games, part of his contract becomes guaranteed. You are throwing money away. Do not find me harsh and uncaring and lack of empathy. Please find me pragmatic, realistic. I spent a career in baseball dreaming, not being realistic. Everything I see in front of me tells me something’s going to happen and then it happens. And I have taken the position, oh, I know that normally happens, but in my case, it won’t happen. It’s become like a mantra throughout my personal and professional life. That won’t happen to me and then it does. Zion Williamson will not turn a switch and all of a sudden be different. Zion Williamson now will be defined the way we define players who were good out of college, who were good in a moment. I’m not even sure Zion Williamson has approached Grant Hill territory. And Grant Hill is the name off the top of my head of a player who could have had it all. Penny Hardaway, another example of a player who could have had it all. And injuries just made it so they are forgotten about. Now, they’re still involved in baseball and of course, but as players, Grant Till and Penny Hardaway, yeah, decent run, didn’t achieve what they could have. Injuries were crushing to them. That’s where we are with Zion. And it’s not that we’re trying to guess what could happen going forward. We’ve seen it. It’s been every year. If Joe Dumar doesn’t realize that getting 13 and a half points from the Nuggets is not a big enough sign and you were getting 10 and a half even when Zion was playing. If you are not paying attention to the reality that you right now have the fourth worst odds to win the title, that you are an organization that’s had two winning seasons in the past seven years, that you are an organization that is not taken seriously. What do you do? You make a change. You stop doubling down on who was supposed to be the face of your franchise. You lick your wounds. You wipe your tous and you move on. Anytime you are caught in the past and that causes you to be stuck in the present, what it guarantees is that you will be failed in the future. Break it. Break the habit that forms that gives you comfort. Break the habit that forms that makes you dream about something happening that you know deep in your executive brain won’t happen. Don’t be scared. I spent so many years scared. I can’t even tell you. You don’t need to be that way anymore.

#basketball #zionwilliamson #nba

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