The New Orleans Pelicans just managed to cause a major upset. Taking on the Dallas Mavericks at home, the Pelicans were already without the services of Zion Williamson. On top of that, Brandon Ingram suffered an ankle injury, that sidelined him for the 2nd half. However, with CJ McCollum leading the charge, the Pelicans managed to beat the Mavs 113-106.
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This is an important win for the Pelicans, who are currently fighting for the play-in spots. With this win, they’ve equaled the Lakers at a 32-34 record but stand in the 10th spot. With 16 games left in the regular season, the team needs as many wins as possible to stay within playoff, or rather, play-in contention.
That leaves fans asking: When will Zion return?
When will Zion Williamson return?
As shared by the team, the 6ft 6″ forward recently had imaging done to check his hamstring injury and how it’s healing. The results were out, and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski shared what they meant.
According to Woj, Zion is expected to miss at least two more weeks of action.
Zion Williamson (hamstring) will miss a minimum of two more weeks, Pels say.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 8, 2023
Before the game against the Mavericks, Pelicans’ Head Coach Willie Green also spoke to the media. According to him, Zion is making good progress and has been doing some spot shooting. He expects the All-Star to return before the season ends.
Willie Green says team is optimistic Zion will return before the end of the regular season.
Says he’s doing some spot shooting work. But team wants to be mindful of his return to play after he suffered the setback last time.
— Andrew Lopez (@_Andrew_Lopez) March 8, 2023
The Pelicans fans would hope their coach is right. With Brandon Ingram getting injured as well, the team’s hopes solely rely on CJ, and while he did get them the win today, it won’t be possible to do that every day.
Is Zion injured?
Back in January, it was announced that Zion would miss two to three weeks due to hamstring soreness. After the initial period was completed, it was announced that he had re-aggravated the injury. He was ruled out for another three weeks, minimum.
Now that the recent imaging results are out, we are again being told that he’d at least miss two more weeks. If they say he needs two weeks to recover, they’d have to factor in one or two weeks of ramp-up before returning to the court. We probably won’t see Zion back till April. By that point, if the Pelicans are not in the race for the playoffs/play-in spot, they should just rule him out for the season. This way they can prevent any injury that might happen due to a hastened return.
