The New Orleans Pelicans' 2022-23 season ended at home last night with a 123-118 Play-In Tournament loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Pelicans would probably have won if they had received any contribution from Zion Williamson, who was paid over $13.5 million to play in 29 games this season. In his four year NBA career, Williamson has received over $44 million from the Pelicans despite playing in just 114 games. He has been blessed with generational wealth by the NBA in exchange for less than a season and a half of work--and that does not even include the millions of dollars that he has been paid for commercial endorsements. There is no doubt that Williamson is a talented player--his career averages are 25.8 ppg, 7.0 rpg, and 3.6 apg--but in most professions a person does not get paid for missing the equivalent of two and a half years of work, nor does a person have the good fortune of being financially set for life after working for 18 months.
Williamson's public comments a day before the Play-In Tournament must exasperate and infuriate Pelicans' management, players, and fans. "Physically, I’m fine," Williamson declared. "Now it’s just a matter of when I feel like Zion. I can pretty much do everything, but it's just a matter of the level that I was playing at before my hamstring. I don't want to go out there and be in my own head and affect the team when I can just be on the sideline supporting them more, because I know myself. If I was to go out there, I would be in my head. I would hesitate on certain moves and it could affect the game."
Williamson admits that he is healthy, a fact that we can all see with our own eyes as he unleashes a flurry of dunks while warming up before his teammates go to work. Williamson is healthy, but he does not "feel like Zion," so he collects a check for not playing. Willis Reed played in game seven of the 1970 NBA Finals despite a painful hip injury, but Williamson refused to even attempt to help his team with the season on the line.
It would be great if the Pelicans management informed Zion, "Financially, the franchise is fine. But until we feel like paying you, we are not going to pay you."
Yes, I know that the team cannot do that, because the players collectively bargained for themselves the right to receive guaranteed contracts so that they will be paid even if they choose not to play.
Williamson's foul attitude is a direct result of the NBA endorsing the following noxious notions: showing up to work does not matter, winning does not matter, and employees deserve to be compensated despite not doing their jobs. As I noted in a recent article, the toxic combination of load management and tanking "cheats the fans who buy tickets to see their favorite players, compromises the integrity of playoff seeding, devalues individual and team statistics, and creates a host of issues regarding legalized wagering."
If I ran the Pelicans, I would trade Williamson to any team willing to take him. You cannot trust a person like Williamson, and you certainly cannot win anything of significance with him as the franchise player. There is no reason to believe that he loves the game or that he has a competitive spirit. Maybe he will mature, but he is already a grown man and the NBA as currently structured provides little incentive for players to develop any competitive spirit that is not an intrinsic part of their character already.
If I were one of Williamson's teammates, I would be furious at him. C.J. McCollum has played for months with a thumb injury that may require offseason surgery, and he played the last several games with a shoulder injury that may require offseason surgery--but he played in 75 games for the Pelicans this season, and he played in the Play-In Tournament game last night.
Hype and compensation should never precede accomplishment--but NBA owners and players are not fools; they are brilliant, because they are getting rich off of the money provided by consumers who watch the games, attend the games, and purchase the endorsed products. As long as we continue to spend the money, the owners and players will be happy to take it.