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New Orleans Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin on Friday said rookie Zion Williamson will not play significant minutes in the team’s next game on Saturday against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Griffin held a press conference to clarify the team’s stance on handling Williamson’s workload. The media session followed speculation that his 15 minutes of playing time in Thursday’s 106-104 loss to the Utah Jazz in the restart opener was related to his past injury history or his current conditioning level.
Griffin said that the Pelicans’ performance team laid out a very clear plan for every player on the team that included a certain ramp-up period during the team’s three scrimmage games. Since Williamson left the team to attend to an urgent family matter, he was not able to go through that plan that was laid out and is still in the process of increasing his playing time.
Unfortunately, because of the situation with his family, he was called away and it was a very legitimate reason to leave. Unfortunately, he is 13 days removed from the group in terms of following that plan after not playing basketball for what amounts to four months. I appreciate the fact that everybody wants him to play 40 minutes tomorrow night but I can promise you he is not going to.
No mistakes were made yesterday relative to how this was handled other than by me not coming forward and just expressing this in the clearest way possible. This isn’t complicated. He will not play significant minutes in the next game and he may not in the following game, quite frankly. This is all about a ramp-up time and he didn’t get the benefit of any of the things his teammates got for those 13 days.
Williamson recorded 13 points and one assist in the loss and played in 3-4 minute bursts at the beginning of each quarter throughout the contest. Griffin said the medical staff determined the start of each quarter would be the best time to play Williamson to ensure that he is loose and ready to play at that point.
Griffin said the minute count on Thursday was not related to Williamson’s past injury history involving his knee but it was rather just the ramp-up period that each player on the roster went through. He said that had any other player left the team for the same period of time that they would have been handled the same way as Williamson.
Williamson said Thursday night that he wants to be playing more but said that he is still working to get back into the groove of playing significant minutes. The Pelicans play the Clippers on Saturday and it will be worth monitoring how the team handles his workload.
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