It’s been a rough season for New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson.
The former No. 1 overall pick hasn’t played this season due to a foot injury, and he’s spent much of that time away from the team completely. When it was revealed that the newly acquired C.J. McCollum hadn’t even spoken with Williamson directly (they have now), former Pelicans guard J.J. Redick went on ESPN’s First Take and criticized Williamson for being a detached teammate.
You have to think that Williamson took notice of those remarks in some way, though, because on Tuesday, Williamson’s Instagram Story was about fellow Pelicans teammate Devonte’ Graham.
Jj said Zion was a bad teammate so he posted team highlights on his IG lmao pic.twitter.com/FEPwnch2Zn
— kyle (@knicks_tape99) February 22, 2022
Williamson re-shared a highlight post of Graham’s game-winning three against the Jazz. But it wasn’t a totally random post: Tuesday was Graham’s 27th birthday.
So, Zion was somewhat wishing Graham a happy birthday publicly. Of course, he didn’t mention Graham’s handle or write any sort of personalized message, but that also could have been done privately for all we know.
Still, the subtle response to Redick’s comments there was pretty hilarious. Redick called Zion a detached teammate who couldn’t even do the minimum in reaching out to McCollum, so Zion went ahead and did the absolute minimum with a generic re-post for a teammate’s birthday.
Still, there’s a reason that Zion wasn’t included in the season-ticket email. The situation just isn’t going smoothly in New Orleans at all.