{"id":692382,"date":"2026-04-01T18:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692382\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:34:20","slug":"zion-williamson-sounds-off-on-trade-rumors-amid-pelicans-buzz-ahead-of-2026-nba-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692382\/","title":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson Sounds Off on Trade Rumors amid Pelicans Buzz Ahead of 2026 NBA Offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zion Williamson wants to stay with the New Orleans Pelicans but understands there’s a “realistic” possibility he will be traded in the future, he recently told Yahoo Sports’ Yaron Weitzman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“New Orleans is home for me. It’s where I want to be,” Williamson told Weitzman. “But at the end of the day, if we’re going to be realistic about it, the NBA is a business. <\/p>\n

“I could be traded in the offseason, or I could be traded before [next season’s] trade deadline… Not that I want that to happen. But that’s just the realism of it.”<\/p>\n

Those comments are similar to how Williamson described<\/a> his feelings in a March appearance on NBA Today during which he repeatedly referred to New Orleans as his “home.”<\/p>\n

“I want to do what I can to help New Orleans win,” Williamson said in March. “If you can win a championship in New Orleans\u2014if you look at the impact Drew Brees had with winning a Super Bowl\u2014you’re forever. And who doesn’t want to be forever?”<\/p>\n

According to Weitzman, “a source close to Williamson” says the forward has not “been given any indication that his time in New Orleans is nearing an end.”<\/p>\n

Williamson has appeared in 59 games for the Pelicans this season, marking his highest availability since the 2020-21 campaign.<\/p>\n

He’s averaging 21.3 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists and one steal per game for a 25-win Pelicans team that will miss the playoffs for a second straight season.<\/p>\n

Williamson’s play hasn’t been enough to lift the Pelicans back into playoff contention, but it’s been enough to lock in more earnings from what was previously an entirely non-guaranteed $42.2 million salary in 2026-27.<\/p>\n

By crossing the 51 games played threshold, Williamson increased his guaranteed salary next season to $25.3 million, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That could potentially make it more difficult for the Pelicans to trade Williamson, who is currently signed on his incentive-heavy contract through the 2027-28 campaign.<\/p>\n

One Western Conference executive told Weitzman: “Right now he’s a borderline All-Star who makes a lot of money. That’s the sort of player a lot of teams are now avoiding.”<\/p>\n

The Pelicans decided to stand pat at the trade deadline despite rumored trade interest in Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III.<\/p>\n

Given that Williamson’s turnaround this season has both given the Pelicans hope he can stay available in the future and potentially increased the difficulty of trading him, New Orleans may decide to run things back with their current core of Jones, Murphy, Williamson and Dejounte Murray in hopes of returning to playoff contention by 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson wants to stay with the New Orleans Pelicans but understands there’s a “realistic” possibility he will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-692382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanspelicans","14":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116330893434642893","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}