Addressing reporters at the Pelicans‘ Media Day on Monday, star forward Zion Williamson expressed a desire to remain with the franchise for the foreseeable future.
“I love it here. I love the city of New Orleans,” Williamson said, per Andrew Lopez of ESPN (Twitter link). “I don’t wanna be anywhere else.”
An offseason report suggested that some of Williamson’s family members want him out of New Orleans, while a more recent story suggested he and Pelicans head of basketball operations David Griffin aren’t on particularly great terms. However, after dismissing the idea that he wants to leave the Pelicans, Williamson also downplayed the idea that there’s any frostiness between him and Griffin.
“It’s all love with me and Griff,” Williamson said. “… We’re both competitors, we both want to win. Do we disagree on some things? Yes. But no one agrees on everything.”
Here’s more from around the Southwest:
- Griffin said today that there are one or two players left on the Pelicans‘ roster who remain unvaccinated, while Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said his team is 100% vaccinated (Twitter links via William Guillory of The Athletic and Mike Finger of The San Antonio Express-News). Meanwhile, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd estimated that his players are about 90% vaccinated, adding that the goal is to get that number to 100% by opening night (Twitter links via Callie Caplan and Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News).
- Veteran Pelicans guard Garrett Temple said he’s interested in getting into coaching or front office work after he retires, tweets Christian Clark of NOLA.com. Temple added that his preference would likely be a front office role, since coaching can be “finicky.”
- Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News shares an in-depth profile of new Mavericks president of basketball operations Nico Harrison, detailing the long path Harrison took to becoming Dallas’ lead basketball decision-maker.
- Grizzlies forward Dillon Brooks will be a full participant in training camp, head of basketball operations Zach Kleiman said today (Twitter link via Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian). Brooks was out for eight weeks this summer after breaking his hand in two spots, tweets Drew Hill of The Daily Memphian.
Estimated at about 90%, one or two players who are unvaccinated?
Could Kidd and Griffin be more vague? They must know the exact numbers.
I really wish the media stop making up news about Zion and his desire to leave NOLA for click bait purposes. I’ve not once heard anything str8 from Zion about his wanting to leave and I follow everything there is about my Pelicans. I’m looking forward to a good year despite all the negative press we got for our offseason moves we should be much more competitive this year under the leadership of Willie Green.
@King
It’s been made clear that Zion hasn’t said anything at all but its his family doing the chirping. Zion shouldn’t have to deal with the questions but should tell his family to shut up. He should actually say publicly that if you don’t hear it from me or my agent then don’t believe it.