{"id":77122,"date":"2025-06-04T21:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T21:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/77122\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T21:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T21:40:10","slug":"pelicans-joe-dumars-speaks-out-on-zion-allegations-and-offseason-accountability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/77122\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicans\u2019 Joe Dumars speaks out on Zion allegations and offseason accountability"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – For the first time since Zion Williamson was accused of rape<\/a>, assault, kidnapping, and making death threats, the Pelicans\u2019 new President of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars, is speaking publicly about the situation.<\/p>\n

Dumars, an NBA veteran and former league executive who previously oversaw player conduct and discipline, understands the gravity of the claims lodged against Williamson in a civil lawsuit filed last week in California. <\/p>\n

The suit alleges years of abuse spanning multiple states during what the plaintiff says was a long-term relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou take that serious, right?\u201d Dumars said. \u201cYou certainly don\u2019t want to be dismissive of anything like that or take it lightly. But beyond that, there\u2019s nothing else that I could possibly say to touch that, other than the fact that we look at it, we take it serious, and then we\u2019ll let it play out and see where it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

ZION WILLIAMSON LAWSUIT<\/p>\n

Gayle Benson responds to Zion Williamson lawsuit alleging rape and abuse<\/a>Zion Williamson calls new rape, assault allegations financially motivated<\/a><\/p>\n

While Dumars declined to comment on the legal specifics, he said the league and the team are committed to handling the situation properly.<\/p>\n

Gayle Benson, owner of the New Orleans Pelicans, commented earlier this week<\/a>, saying, \u201cLawsuits are lawsuits. You can sue for anything. It\u2019s just something people do, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Dumars says he\u2019s had several one-on-one conversations with Williamson during the offseason, most of them focused on leadership, accountability, and the weight of being the face of a franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy conversations with him have been about the responsibility of being a great player for a team, being one of the faces for a team,\u201d Dumars said. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to him extensively about that responsibility and being accountable for that. Quite frankly, what I said to him too\u2014I said, \u2018You got to own all of this. You can\u2019t just own the good parts. You have to own the responsibility parts and you have to be accountable for yourself and everybody else.\u2019 So there\u2019s been some very direct, very good conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here<\/a> to report it. Please include the headline.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the Fox 8 YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 WVUE. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – For the first time since Zion Williamson was accused of rape, assault, kidnapping, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,17711,4314,17707,6,478,470,4073,4072,675,17708,17710,17712,17709,16179],"class_list":{"0":"post-77122","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-joe-dumars-interview","10":"tag-joe-dumars-pelicans","11":"tag-joe-dumars-zion","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-orleans","14":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","15":"tag-neworleans","16":"tag-neworleanspelicans","17":"tag-pelicans","18":"tag-pelicans-zion-lawsuit","19":"tag-zion-civil-lawsuit","20":"tag-zion-rape-accusation","21":"tag-zion-williamson-allegations","22":"tag-zion-williamson-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114627269363399467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77122","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=77122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}