Zion Williamson, Pelicans know talk is cheap and actions matter: We just have to show yall -

NEW ORLEANS – Zion Williamson didn’t appear to be in much of a talking mood at Monday’s media day in New Orleans.

The jovial Pelicans star usually flashes his signature smile or cracks jokes when a large number of cameras and members of the media surround him. In his first few NBA seasons, his demeanor during these media sessions before the start of training camp would often come off like a kid on their first day of school.

On Monday, he looked more like a kid stuck in detention.

Other than his thoughts on becoming a father, very few of his answers were as earnest as we’re used to seeing from Zion in these settings.

But he said one thing that sums up the state of the 2023-24 New Orleans Pelicans.

“There’s a lot of greatness within this organization,” Williamson said. “But I’m not going to sit up here and talk about it too much. We just have to show y’all.”

We’ve all seen the talent of the individual pieces on this roster. We’ve heard how good the team thinks it can be once everyone is healthy and on the same page.

But none of the talk matters until this group backs up that confidence with actual wins and postseason success. And this current core is running out of time to prove it has what it takes to win on the highest level.

At Monday’s media day, just about every prominent Pelicans figure said with conviction that anything less than a playoff berth this season would be considered a failure. This should come as no surprise with the Pelicans’ three biggest stars – Zion, Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum – heading into their third season together, each set to make more than $30 million annually.

The days of New Orleans escaping accountability as the young, scrappy team trying to figure it out are over. This group is being paid like perennial playoff contenders, and that’s how it needs to perform, or else. If the Pelicans can keep all their pieces on the court, there’s no reason this team should fall short of its goals, even with the incredible talent from top to bottom in this year’s Western Conference.

Based on their answers Monday, the Pelicans seem like a team ready to embrace those expectations.

“We need to take another step in the right direction. We want to have sustainable winning. That’s our goal,” Pels head coach Willie Green said on Monday. “To give yourself a chance to win a championship, you’ve got to get to the playoffs. … How can we take a step in the right direction? We want to be a playoff team.”

GO DEEPER

Zion Williamson and the Pelicans begin their most important season yet

That may be part of the motivation behind Williamson’s change in demeanor. He didn’t seem unhappy, just more determined to answer his critics not with words, but with his performance on the court. His lack of patience was palpable for anyone who didn’t see his vision.

To establish a model of sustainable success, most teams build on the back of a transcendent star who can put it in position to win consistently due to their sheer existence. Since he entered the league, Williamson was supposed to be that guy, but various leg injuries have forced him to miss 194 games, including 135 over the last two seasons.

The pressure on Zion to produce and eventually become that player is as high as ever. But he doesn’t need to be an MVP-caliber contributor now. Pels fans will be happy enough to first see him play 30 consecutive games without a hiccup.

Williamson understands how much is on his shoulders. He switched up his routine this summer to put himself in a better position to carry that load without another setback. Instead of venturing to Florida, as he did for much of last offseason, the Pelicans’ star spent much of his summer in New Orleans working out at the team’s practice facility, spending time around teammates and other Pels staffers.

That may sound like the bare minimum for many players, but it’s a step in the right direction for Williamson, who’s still working to build relationships within the organization after spending so much time away from the team because of injury the past two seasons.

“Staying in New Orleans was a big part of the summer, working with the Pels. Being on the same page with them and my personal trainers,” Williamson said. “Really locking in to every aspect of my body. … We sat down with the Pels and came up with a great plan.”

He also brought in medical experts to implement extensive evaluations of his body over the summer and craft the best plan to ensure he’s durable enough to last for an 82-game season, sources close to Williamson told The Athletic. He wanted to make sure there was no stone unturned in his effort to figure out how he could stay healthy.

On Monday, Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin said he was thrilled with the effort Williamson put in to make sure he’s in the best position to succeed.

“This was the first summer where we’ve seen Zion really take his profession seriously like that and invest it off the court on his own in a way that I think is meaningful,” Griffin said. “I don’t want too much to be made about being in our gym. I want it to be that he found a level of commitment that was important.”

Zion Williamson spent much of this summer training in New Orleans. (Matthew Hinton / USA Today)

Beyond the mystery of Williamson’s health, the Pelicans are desperate to see how good he, Ingram and McCollum can be as a trio. Each has played brilliantly in stretches over the past two seasons, but none of those highs have occurred with all three simultaneously healthy. Last year, Williamson, McCollum and Ingram played just 10 games together, and none of those games came against the types of opponents New Orleans expects to see in the postseason.

Considering the trio will make nearly $104 million combined this season and all have additional guaranteed years left on their contracts, anything less than a successful season would make it difficult for the front office to justify bringing all three back with a hefty luxury tax bill looming. The Pelicans have never paid the luxury tax in franchise history, but Griffin was adamant that ownership had no problem changing this fact if the right team came along.

“We do need to see these guys play together, because we do think they can be really good,” Pelicans GM Trajan Langdon said. “A lot of times, you don’t know the fit until you see it for a sustained period of time. We just haven’t seen a lot of it. You’ve got to see a lot of it and you’ve got to see it in pressure situations.”

One of the first significant changes the Pelicans made was adding James Borrego as an assistant coach. The former Charlotte Hornets head man was brought in to help Green improve a unit that ranked 20th in points scored per 100 possessions and 25th in the 45 games after Williamson’s season-ending hamstring injury. Green hopes a revamped offensive system could yield more ball movement and create more open 3-point shots for a team that struggled in that area. More importantly, he’d like a system that can produce efficient offense, whether his stars are on the floor or not.

“He comes to the game with an offensive lens I think we need – I needed,” Green said of Borrego. “I think he’s going to be a huge component to elevate our program, especially on the offensive end.”

New Orleans also made some critical changes to its much-maligned sports and performance staff, with former head trainer Aaron Nelson moving into an advisory role and hiring Amy Atmore to become director of rehabilitation. Griffin said most of the shakeups within the group this summer were inspired by the front office’s season-ending conversations with players on improvements they wanted to see.

After dealing with multiple injury setbacks and timelines that dragged on longer than expected in recent years, Griffin said it was important for New Orleans to take a more collaborative approach in assessing rehab processes. He hopes that players, front office and several medical staff members will all be able to communicate through the necessary steps as a player works his way back from injury. The constant confusion attached to the severity of injuries sustained by Pelicans players, and the amount of time they have to sit out, have to be a thing of the past.

“Hope’s not a plan. I’ve said that before. We can’t just hope we’re healthy. We’ve got to make really measured decisions about making this team better,” Griffin said. “I think everyone understands there’s a great deal riding on this season.”

That everyone in the franchise is so open about taking the next step has produced a slight “us against the world” mentality among the players that revealed itself in short glimpses on Monday. Carrying that over to the start of the season will help establish an identity that’s somewhat lacking for a team still learning how to play together and fit within a new system.

Whatever rallying call the Pelicans get behind should be good enough if all the main pieces remain healthy. But there is no motivator for a team quite like knowing there will be significant changes unless the players and staff get their act together immediately.

“Our team is coming in with an edge this year. We aren’t being talked about, which I think is good,” Langdon said. “I think (Williamson) feels the same way. He’s going to come in with an edge to compete and try to really lift this team to be one of the top teams in the Western Conference.”

And if he doesn’t, who knows what this team will look like next year?

(Top photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

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