Perhaps the moment you NBA fans have been waiting for. Certainly even the most casual hoops fans have been awaiting no. 1 overall pick Zion Williamson to debut for the New Orleans Pelicans.
According to Mitch Lawrence who covers the team – who has sources – that moment will arrive this Thursday night. Furthermore, the Pelicans have the Utah Jazz on the schedule that evening. Lawrence took to twitter to announce this news.
The Pelicans will know a lot more after practice this week, but it sure sounds like we’ll get the long-awaited NBA debut of Zion Williamson on Thursday vs. the Jazz. That’s the plan, anyway, per sources.
— Mitch Lawrence (@Mitch_Lawrence) January 13, 2020
Indeed, there could be a setback. Even if Williamson does play, don’t expect it to be a heavy workload.
Already head coach Alvin Gentry has said that Williamson won’t play full minutes from the jump. What this means for the Pelicans’ rotation isn’t known, but it won’t mean we get 35 minutes of Zion on Thursday night.
However, Zion should start to see his minutes build which means by season’s end; he should be rounding into the form of usage that we see him at for the most active parts of his career. It will be interesting to see how the Pelicans manage his load management with his workload already being a topic of concern for the franchise.
Either way, we will have more on this potential ‘Zion Day’ on Thursday if it happens.
