Pelicans GM David Griffin Basically Says Zion Is Staying In Bubble Wrap For The Foreseeable Future
Listen, I get what David Griffin is saying here. There are people way more qualified and way smarter than me who make it their lives to come up with some sort of ramp up plan for Zion. It's true that Zion didn't get to play in the scrimmages that everyone else did and maybe it takes him some time to get into shape. As someone who also roots for a team where they are putting a star on a minutes restriction I get it. You want to be careful. But here's the thing. Zion didn't have to play 30 minutes last night in their first game back. But when it's close in the fourth quarter and you are choking a game away, he can play a total of 17 minutes. These are all must win games for the Pelicans and if Zion is truly 100% healthy, how can he not handle 17 minutes? Or 20 minutes?
Obviously the Pelicans are putting more value in the future of Zion than making the playoffs only to get killed by the Lakers. At the same time the league bent over backwards to get Zion into the dance. I don't think they would have done that if they knew that Zion was basically never going to play. Talk about a bummer. We wait all year to see Zion, we get 19 games and then boom, he's back to being in bubble wrap for the foreseeable future. I can understand having a plan, but that plan has to be flexible given what happens in these seeding games if this team is serious about making the playoffs. It makes me wonder how the guys on the team feel that are making this sacrifice to go into this bubble only to not be able to attack it at full strength.
The Pels go LAC/MEM/SAC, and David Griffin is telling us Zion won't really play? Against MEMPHIS???? The team they are trying to catch does not seem like an opportunity to rest guys. Maybe this is just me being selfish as a fan and someone who loves watching Zion play, but I'm going to have to ask Griffin to turn his key and activate Zion with no restrictions
Give the people what we want. If Zion can't handle playing real minutes at 20 years old then that's just life. I get that it might be short sighted to play Zion now, but it would be such a massive bummer if the Pelicans miss the playoffs because they were too protective of Zion. By the time they are ready to give him normal minutes it might be too late.