Reinforcements are on the way soon for the Pelicans, who have been without their most talented backcourt player (Jrue Holiday) for the last four games and their most talented frontcourt player (Zion Williamson) for the entire season.
According to Christian Clark of NOLA.com (Twitter link), Holiday isn’t expected to play on Monday night in Detroit, but Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry sounded optimistic that the veteran guard will be ready to go on Thursday against Utah.
Meanwhile, Williamson – who was playing 3-on-3 after shootaround this morning with Holiday and Pelicans staffers – is inching closer to making his NBA debut. According to veteran NBA writer Mitch Lawrence (Twitter link), there’s a chance that could happen as early as Thursday, depending on how practice goes this week for Zion.
As we wait for an update from New Orleans on the season’s most-anticipated debut, let’s round up a few more injury-related items…
- Paul George, who has missed the Clippers‘ last two games due to a hamstring injury, is expected to be re-evaluated early this week, per Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times. George aggravated the left hamstring issue in a practice last Wednesday.
- Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns won’t be back to action on Monday night, but it sounds like that’s more a result of an illness than his knee injury, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. A return appears imminent for Towns, who hasn’t played since December 13.
- After being sidelined for nearly a month with a broken finger, Celtics center Vincent Poirier is available to play on Monday night, tweets Marc D’Amico of Celtics.com.
Maybe NOLA has given up on their “kinetic chain” regime. Just send Z out there and his knee connective tissues will react how they do.
If he would just line up his bending parts straight when exploding… but nobody thinks of that mid-competition. His feet may not be quick enough to keep up with his abilities & ambitions. I don’t even know if that’s a point of emphasis– writers don’t go into rehab detail.
I like being able to see him do his thing in the NBA. Very happy he came out.
Go Zion wield your shiny new “kinetic link” and slay! We have recording devices to remember how it looked.