{"id":692867,"date":"2026-04-01T23:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692867\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T23:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:52:26","slug":"zion-williamson-addresses-pelicans-trade-rumors-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/692867\/","title":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson addresses Pelicans trade rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/players\/zion_williamson\/686084\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zion Williamson<\/a>\u2019s future with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/teams\/new_orleans_pelicans\/80\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> remains in question, and the former No. 1 overall pick is coming to terms with that.<\/p>\n<p>Williamson admitted his preference would be to stay in New Orleans, but acknowledged that the NBA is a business and cannot be certain whether he will be back with the team next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew Orleans is home for me. It\u2019s where I want to be,\u201d Williamson said, <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/article\/is-zion-williamsons-time-in-new-orleans-nearing-its-end-i-could-be-traded--thats-just-the-realism-of-it-144123578.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">via Yaron Weitzman of Yahoo Sports<\/a>. \u201cBut at the end of the day, if we\u2019re going to be realistic about it, the NBA is a business. I could be traded in the offseason, or I could be traded before [next season\u2019s] trade deadline. Not that I want that to happen, but that\u2019s just the realism of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One thing that might keep Williamson in New Orleans is his trade value. One NBA executive anonymously described Williamson to Yahoo Sports as \u201ca borderline All-Star who makes a lot of money,\u201d and added that \u201ca lot of teams are now avoiding\u201d acquiring such players.<\/p>\n<p>Williamson has two years remaining on his current contract. He is slated to make over $42 million next season, and much of that money has become guaranteed thanks to the fact that he has largely stayed healthy this season.<\/p>\n<p>Williamson, 25, remains skilled, particularly when driving to the basket. His defense and rebounding are suspect, though, and he is making a lot of money for a player who is unreliable in that many respects. The Pelicans <a href=\"https:\/\/larrybrownsports.com\/basketball\/pelicans-eager-trade-zion-williamson\/729918\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">were reportedly eager to move him<\/a> earlier in the season, but found no takers. It remains to be seen if that will still be the case this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson\u2019s future with the New Orleans Pelicans remains in question, and the former No. 1 overall pick&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692868,"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-692867","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\/116332143928631044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692867","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=692867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}