"I'm out for straight vengeance"-Zion

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Since the start of July, Williamson has begun his days at the crack of dawn, tying his shoes, changing into a different T-shirt and rising from blue bleachers to step on the old court that once was the home of Little Elm’s high school basketball team.

For more than two months, he’s started five days a week with a 6 a.m. workout at this facility. He ends those days about 10 minutes down the road, with a 7 p.m. workout at Little Elm’s new basketball gym.

Williamson’s traveling party is small. On this mid-August day, it includes his stepfather, Lee Anderson, two of his close friends who once played Division I basketball (EJ Montgomery and Greg Hammond), Damon Barnett, who coaches the boys basketball team at Little Elm High, and Pelicans assistant coach Aaron Miles.

The prominent presence of Miles, in particular, is a sign of the growing trust between Williamson and the Pelicans.

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To bolster the coaching staff, the Pelicans hired Miles, a former University of Kansas guard who previously served as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics. In Boston, Miles worked directly with Celtics star Jayson Tatum and played a role in his emergence as a superstar and eventual champion.

“Coach Miles is a great dude and he knows what greatness looks like,” Williamson says. “He’s been around Steph (Curry). He’s been around Klay (Thompson). He’s been around (Jayson) Tatum. He knows what it takes to be a champion.”

Miles spent a week in Little Elm during late August, making sure he attended Williamson’s twice-daily workouts. It was the first time Williamson spent extended time with a Pelicans assistant away from New Orleans working out during the offseason.

Sometimes, Miles ran the workouts while in Little Elm. Once, in a particularly exhausting sequence, Miles tasked Williamson, Hammond and Montgomery with sliding their feet from the baseline to half court while keeping a ballhandler in front of them. Then, the three players had to catch a pass, sprint into a layup and follow up with five made corner 3s. Miss two in a row, and they had to start over.

Other times, Miles helped as Anderson took command of the sessions. In this morning workout, Anderson wants to get Williamson’s competitive juices flowing.

“This is when it gets fun!” Williamson yells as he walks across the floor. “It’s almost time to flip that switch!”

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After another morning workout a day later, Miles joins the group for breakfast at the Little Elm house Williamson’s agency rented for several months. While there, Miles and Williamson talk about life in New Orleans, family and their belief in a Pelicans core fortified by the addition of former Atlanta Hawks point guard Dejounte Murray. Williamson also shares Miles’ feedback on the King of the Court game.

The message: It shouldn’t have taken the two-time All-Star so long to “flip the switch” and go in for the kill.

While Miles was the key figure with the Pelicans working alongside Williamson this week, the team had at least one staff member there with Williamson for most of the two months he spent in Texas. Pelicans director of performance and sports science Daniel Bove, who worked closely with Williamson last season as the Pelicans star began to prioritize putting in extra work after practices and shootarounds, spent much of the summer in Little Elm.

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Marvin Sanders, Williamson’s chef, was another key figure in the traveling party. Sanders has worked with other professional athletes such as Jaren Jackson Jr. and Hassan Whiteside. He lived with Williamson during his time in Little Elm, the same way he did the previous summer when Williamson did most of his offseason work in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sanders, a U.S. Navy veteran, even stepped in and participated in a few workouts with Williamson when another body was needed.

Sanders’ responsibility is to whip up healthy meals so Williamson can reach his goal of entering training camp at 270 pounds. He’s been listed at 284 pounds his entire career and has a clause in his contract that requires his combined weight and body fat percentage to be no higher than 295.

During Miles’ first trip to the house for a post-workout breakfast, Sanders prepares enough food for the traveling party: scrambled eggs, grits, turkey bacon, breakfast potatoes with sauteed vegetables, salmon fried in avocado oil and smoothies made with strawberries and bananas. “Chef, if you keep throwing down like this, I might have to move in with these guys,” Miles jokes.

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“I was just looking up at the scoreboard like, ‘Damn, this isn’t us. That starts with me. I can’t be like this,’” Williamson says while shaking his head. “This s— can’t happen anymore.”

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“When rumors are floating around and all that, after a while, it does take its toll a little bit,” Williamson says. … “It was time for me to figure out a different way.”

In the days following the loss, Griffin and other members of the Pelicans front office met with Williamson and implored him to be better. They agreed he needed to work harder, but it was deeper than that. They told Williamson that becoming the face of the franchise would require him to be more present as a teammate and leader. He needed to consistently show his greatness on the court and with his work away from the court.

For the rest of the season, Williamson focused on “stacking days” with extra workouts after practice. He made more of an effort to connect with fellow Pelicans star Brandon Ingram. Williamson was more vocal with teammates and took a more hands-on approach with the coaching staff to find solutions to issues that held the team back from contending. He developed a routine that worked for him and the team.

In the process, his relationship with his teammates, coaches and the front office improved rapidly. They started to understand one another. The work got easier with each day.

“(The In-Season Tournament loss) was definitely one of the key turning points in the season, and honestly, for me as a man in my career,” Williamson says. “I’m watching (LeBron James) out here on the court, doing what he’s doing. I’m telling myself I want to be a player that has a high level of greatness — one of the greats. In that big moment, I didn’t show up. It hit me while the game was going on. I just looked up and said, ‘I didn’t show up.’ I don’t have any excuse.”

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After reflecting on all the setbacks, trust issues and self-proclaimed mistakes, Williamson is asked what fans should expect from this improved version of himself heading into his sixth season.

He sits back in his chair and stares out at the water for 10 to 15 seconds. He tries to find the right words. Then, he cracks a smile:

“How can I say this the right way?”

Another pause.

“I’m out for straight vengeance,” Williamson says. “Not against any particular person. Just for myself.”

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Really hard to get my hopes up for this dude.

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But we ridin’

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Aaron miles spent the summer with him, and the Pels had at least one staff member with Zion all summer. A first.


Don’t know if this is normal around the league or not but seems like they’re still having to babysit him.

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Williamson’s traveling party is small. On this mid-August day, it includes his stepfather, Lee Anderson

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Look at yourself:

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