Pelicans’ Zion Williamson reflects on playing 100 career NBA games: ‘It’s been a long journey’

New Orleans Pelicans star ahead Zion Williamson reached a main milestone in opposition to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night time, as he performed in his one centesimal career NBA sport. Williamson has had an attention-grabbing begin to his career. He entered the league as some of the highly-hyped prospects in current reminiscence, and has been downright dominant when he has been out on the ground for New Orleans. The 2,524 career factors he has scored up to now are probably the most in a participant’s first 100 video games since Michael Jordan. 

However, he is additionally been tormented by damage points. Williamson performed in simply 24 video games throughout his rookie marketing campaign attributable to knee surgical procedure, and he missed everything of final season due to a foot damage. This is why it took him till a month into his fourth season to hit the 100-game mark. After the Pelicans’ 105-101 win over Oklahoma City, Williamson mirrored on his career up to now, what reaching triple digits in video games performed means to him and why he is optimistic for the longer term with in New Orleans. 

“I didn’t even think about it,” Williamson mentioned of hitting 100 video games, through Nola.com. “But that is a big milestone. I’m on three coaches. This is the first year the locker room has looked somewhat the same players-wise. The thing I can take away from that is it’s just good to have steady people around me now.

“We have a particular crew,” he added. “We have a lot of nice gamers on this crew.”  

While Williamson would have most well-liked to have a fully wholesome begin to his career, he thinks the adversity he has confronted already has helped him develop, each on and off of the court docket. 

“It’s been a long journey,” Williamson mentioned. “Would I have liked the journey to have gone like that? Absolutely not. I wish I could have played every game. At the end of the day, I’m still grateful I went through that. It helped me realize a lot mentally, spiritually and just growing as a man.”  

Williamson has shortly blossomed into some of the electrical and thrilling gamers to observe in the whole NBA, and the Pelicans additionally look like trending in the precise path. After making it to the playoffs with out Williamson final season, the crew will look to take one other step ahead this season, and issues have been going effectively up to now. Twenty video games into the season, the Pelicans sit third within the Western Conference with a 12-8 report. So, as long as Williamson can stay wholesome and out on the court docket, there’s actual actual for optimism in New Orleans.