Pelicans star Zion Williamson has faced scrutiny in recent months for personal issues off the court and been a subject of trade rumors while recovering from a hamstring injury that limited him to 29 games last season. With that as a backdrop, reporters asked the 23-year-old power forward what he focused on the most this offseason.
Williamson’s response was priceless. “What I worked on was being unguardable,” he said at the team’s annual preseason media day on Monday.
In one sense, Williamson has been unguardable previously because he’s only registered one season in which he played at least 60 games, due to a string of injuries. But Pelicans general manager David Griffin said Monday that Williamson showed newfound dedication to conditioning this offseason.
“This is the first summer Zion has taken his profession seriously in that regard,” Griffin said, via Shamit Dua of In the N.O.
“What I worked on was being unguardable.” 😂
— BASKETBALL ON 𝕏 (@BasketballOnX) October 2, 2023
- Zion Williamson
pic.twitter.com/ebvOZr5KHp
Griffin’s statement echoes a comment Williamson made in July when he appeared on the Gil’s Arena podcast, saying that he was focusing on his “flexibility and band work” and that he was following LeBron James’s “blueprint” for conditioning.
It will be interesting to see if Williamson’s offseason regimen helps him become a consistently dominant force on the hardwood this season.
