Zion Williamson was on the bench as the Pelicans had their season end with the loss against the Thunder. The 22-year-old power forward has been out with a hamstring injury since early January.
Former NBA champion Stephen Jackson thinks that the Pelicans star should have at least tried to play in this game which would have gained him more respect from his teammates.
“He’s missed a lot of games. A lot of games,” Jackson said on SHOWTIME Basketball. “Got his money, right? Missed a lot of games at this point. Game one. Let’s see what you got. This where I’m at with it.
“Let’s just see what you got. And if you just can’t go and it’s looking that bad, yeah, we’ll shut you down. But just me see what you got at this point. I don’t think being off and rehabbing, whatever you been doing hasn’t done anything for you because you’ve been out for so long.
“You’ve been hurt again, you’ve been hurt again. I think at this point if you somewhere healthy where you think about playing and you’re not confident mentally, you’re got to go out there and play and get the confidence by playing and see what you can do.
“Sitting there thinking about it where I’m not confident, you don’t know. Go and give it a shot. Then if you hurt and you can’t go, then that’s one thing. But I think your teammates will respect you more if you try to give it a shot. This is the playoffs, this is not pre-season. We have a shot to do something great.”
Another former NBA champion Kendrick Perkins also called out Zion for not playing in the play-in tournament. He questioned whether New Orleans should trust him as a franchise player.
This season Williamson averaged 26 points, 7 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 33 minutes over 29 regular season games.
