Zion Williamson finally returned to the Pelicans. Now comes the important part

NEW ORLEANS — Pelicans fans have been here before.

After missing 27 games with a left hamstring strain, Zion Williamson returned to the court on Tuesday night and provided one of the few gratifying moments the New Orleans Pelicans could savor during an awful season. Still, it was tough to overlook the feelings of déjà vu that hung in the air.

With all the injuries he’s dealt with in the past, “Zion’s long-awaited return” almost feels like an annual event at Smoothie King Center. Pelicans fans have grown familiar with all the steps that go into the process.

There’s the announcement that he’ll be available. Then, the videos of him going through pregame warmups. Then, the roar when he’s announced during starting lineup introductions. He’ll most likely have a slow start. Then, he’ll have those flashes of brilliance that remind everyone that Williamson is one of the best basketball players in the world when he’s healthy.

The good news for Williamson and the Pelicans is that there were many moments of brilliance despite New Orleans’ 104-97 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Williamson finished with 22 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in 28 minutes. But the box score didn’t capture just how promising his night was.

From the opening tip, Williamson looked explosive. He was active. He played with force. He certainly didn’t look like someone who hadn’t played in two months. Seeing him that locked in — mentally and physically — was a major success for the Pelicans, even as the team’s record fell to 7-30.

But Pelicans fans have been here before.

They’ve gone through the cycles of bliss and disgust throughout Williamson’s career. They’ve seen him look dominant, and they’ve seen him look like he wasn’t ready for the moment.

With this season already in ruins, there’s only one thing that matters for New Orleans and its face of the franchise the rest of the way: keeping Williamson healthy. At this point, the performance and the production are secondary to making sure he’s there for the rest of the season, proving he can do what it takes to stay on the court.

“It’s extremely important,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “Our medical team and performance, they’re working diligently, along with Zion and the whole staff, to do everything we can on our part to make sure he has all the resources to be healthy.”

After his first game back, Williamson spoke about his “extreme” focus during the rehab process and how much thought the Pelicans training staff put into making sure he was in great shape once he was ready to return. While he was ramping up for his return, some within the organization were already whispering that this was the best he’d ever looked since he became a pro.

It’s only natural that some folks will feel a twinge of skepticism whenever people speak so glowingly about Williamson and his physical shape. Even when he’s tried to do things right in the past, it has ended poorly for him.

Williamson knows this as well as anyone. But he’s still doing exactly what he should be doing to prove everyone wrong: staying consistent with his work, communicating with the team and remaining diligent with his habits. There’s no guarantee this approach will solve his problems, but it’ll put him in the best position to succeed.

Then, he can allow his work to do the talking. He didn’t waste any time doing that when he scored his second basket of the night by racing ahead of the pack and soaring for a two-handed alley-oop.

He made it clear he was back early in the second half when he picked up a steal in the open court and uncorked a thunderous 360 windmill dunk reminiscent of the one he did against the Phoenix Suns in 2022.

sorry watching Zion’s 360 windmill over and over and over and over and over again pic.twitter.com/GNdIWlaEVG

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 8, 2025

“We worked really hard during this rehab,” Williamson said. “The focus I had during this rehab was a bit more extreme. We found different ways to work and not just be stagnant. Even before I was running, the conditioning the team had me doing was a lot, but it was always good work. Week by week, I could feel the progression.”

In particular, the focus for Williamson the rest of this season — and perhaps the rest of his career — has to be making sure he addresses the hamstring injuries that have been a recurring problem for him.

He missed 45 games in 2022-23 while recovering from a right hamstring strain. He was forced to leave the game in the final minutes of the Pelicans’ Play-In Tournament loss to the Lakers last season after straining his left hamstring. The injury kept him sidelined during his team’s first-round playoff loss to the Thunder.

Williamson downplayed how much extra attention he’s put into his hamstrings over the past few months, but the slight alterations in his routine were already showing Tuesday night. He was one of the last Pelicans players to take the court during pregame warmups because he was in the locker room getting stretched out ahead of tipoff. In the first half, Williamson even went off to the side during one of his stints on the bench to do additional stretching with a team trainer.

Zion doing some stretching with trainers on the side while he’s out of the game pic.twitter.com/ywYepeXEJ7

— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) January 8, 2025

Williamson has said that he has to approach certain aspects of his training differently because of his unique build and explosive athleticism. He and the team are attempting to put more thought into preventative measures to keep from repeatedly dealing with the same issues.

“Just keep learning more and more about my body (and) how my body reacts to certain things,” Williamson said when asked what he could do to stay on the floor more. “Working with the team and just talking it through.”

The importance of making sure Williamson stays healthy isn’t just about his future. It’s about giving him enough time to work with some of the new core players the Pels have put in place as they prepare to transition into a new phase.

In their first regular season game together as teammates, Williamson and Dejounte Murray gave a couple glimpses of what the next phase of Pelicans basketball may look like with those two at the forefront.

Even though Murray has struggled during much of his first season in New Orleans, he played his best game as a Pelican on Tuesday night. Williamson’s presence on both ends of the court played a huge role in him playing with such confidence.

Murray finished with 29 points, six assists and turned the ball over twice in 34 minutes. However, the most fascinating part was watching Murray and Williamson wreak havoc in the passing lanes and create turnovers.

Murray and Williamson combined for nine steals, and they played a key part in the Pelicans scoring 22 points off Minnesota’s 14 turnovers. The highlights of Williamson’s 360 windmill dunk will live on, but look at the way Murray and Williamson hounded Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards at the point of attack to create the opportunity.

Having those two guys flying around with Herb Jones and Jose Alvarado is the identity New Orleans hoped to capture coming into the season. That doesn’t mean it’s too late to figure out during the second half of the season.

Murray and Williamson are still waiting to play their first minutes with Trey Murphy III, who sat out Tuesday with a left ankle sprain. That’s not even mentioning where Brandon Ingram fits in this whole equation once he returns from his ankle injury.

Even if the postseason is already out of reach, getting to see these guys on the court together for an extended period could help inform what the offseason will look like for New Orleans as it braces for a few big decisions.

But it’s much easier to connect all these dots as long as Williamson does his part and remains healthy.

“I’m glad he played with confidence and joy, “ Murray said of Williamson. “Especially after his dunk, you could see the joy. … That’s what I just kept preaching to him. ‘Have fun. Be patient. And just go play your game.’”

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(Photo: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)