New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson will make his NBA regular season debut on Jan. 22 against the San Antonio Spurs, a date Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry has been looking forward to.
Gentry says the NBA needs Williamson and that the high-flyer is kind of like Dallas Mavericks second-year star Luka Doncic:
“I think so. The league does need him,” Alvin Gentry told Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports. “Because he's a great personality, a great feel for the game. And he's a different kind of player. Kind of like Luka [Doncic], basically. They bring an element to the game you don't see in other guys.”
Gentry feels his player is built for the attention, the pressure and the anticipation.
“It’s good for our game,” he said. “What it says is the league is in really good shape. LeBron is an older player, he's still the best player in the league, I think, and still has all the attention. Ja Morant, I think people are starting to feel that way about him, Luka and guys like that.”
In his lone season at Duke, Zion Williamson put on an absolute show. The forward averaged 22.6 points, 8.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game while shooting 68.0 percent from the field, 33.8 percent from beyond the arc and 64.0 percent from the free-throw line.
The meniscus surgery Williamson underwent is unknown, although most experts believe it was a meniscectomy rather than a true repair since the initial estimated timeline of recovery the Pelicans gave was six-to-eight weeks.
Williamson focused on refining his eating habits during his rehab. Throughout the season, Gentry and Pelicans executive president of basketball operations David Griffin have said that Williamson hasn’t suffered any setbacks in his rehab.
The Pelicans have fully anticipated that Williamson would play this season despite all the reports which said he wouldn’t. The Pelicans are 15-26 on the season. Williamson is the new face of the Pelicans in the post-Anthony Davis era. Zion’s knee surgery wasn’t how anyone in New Orleans wanted to see his NBA career begin.
However, his health is very important and everyone in The Big Easy just wants Williamson to be healthy for the long haul so that the Pelicans can be good again and play in the postseason.
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