When you're an All-Star who hasn't played a single game, people start to get talking. Just ask Ben Simmons. Zion Williamson went through a similar ordeal this season with the New Orleans Pelicans.
Zion Williamson missed the entire season, with the uncertainty surrounding his playing status and his future in New Orleans for that matter, the subject of intense scrutiny and speculation throughout the year.
Perhaps one of the most memorable was Zion allegedly snubbing CJ McCollum, who the Pelicans acquired ahead of the NBA Trade Deadline. McCollum said he had not heard from Williamson after becoming teammates, which is out of the ordinary from the face of the franchise that just acquired you.
But it seems like they've since buried that beef. In his sit-down with ESPN's Andrew Lopez, Zion Williamson openly talked about that incident, jokingly referring to the NBPA president as “Mr. McCollum” who said he would “get to the bottom” of the Zion Williamson speculation when he arrived back in February.
“Mr. McCollum. That's just a little payback. Mr. ‘I'm going to get to the bottom of it,'” he said with a big smile. “CJ is a great dude. The short amount of time I have been around him, I've learned so much from him. Great teammate. I'm excited to get on the court with him.”
The two have since formed a solid relationship despite not playing a single minute together. McCollum played like a man possessed ever since he arrived in New Orleans and offers the Pelicans a legitimate veteran star behind Williamson and Brandon Ingram.
The fact that the tantalizing trio never took the court together likely exacerbated the rumors hounding Zion. The Pelicans star is still just 21 years old with the weight of a franchise on his shoulders. He admitted that his mental headspace wasn't doing all that well during that time, which made him overlook some of the more peripheral aspects of being a franchise star.
“Honestly, I was focused on rehabbing around that time,” Williamson said of not speaking to his new Pelicans teammate right away. “I texted CJ shortly after to apologize about that. Like I said, I was mentally not in a good space. Mr. McCollum, he was cool about it. Like I said, I'm excited to get on the court again.”
The whispers will definitely go silent the moment Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum share their first moment of camaraderie on the court together. Pelicans fans want nothing more.
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