What happened to Zion these last 5 months?

I strongly believe him leaving the bubble was manufactured to give reason to limit him. My lone opinion

I think the restriction is based on getting a lottery pick and reason to keep gentry

There has to be something wrong with him. Has to be. Same knee injury, another injury they won't tell us about, had Covid, whatever. SOMETHING is wrong.

You can't tell me that:
A) he is playing less minutes now (if healthy) after a long layoff than he did coming back from his knee injury in January.
B) after dealing with the exact same layoff as his teammates that he can't play 30 minutes JUST LIKE THEM. He isn't in any worse shape than any of them.

Absolutely none of this makes sense whatsoever. Only way it would is if Griffin says something, which he hasn't.

If it’s due to lottery seeding I’m all for it

He’s fine. Our new medical staff has just horrendously overcorrected after the last one maimed people.

But to not put him in in the last 2:00... Gayle needs to clean house and find a staff who wants to win.

Some of yalls obsession with Lamelo is weird

This overreaction over his minutes is...bizarre to say the least. It’s been one game. If he’s still playing 15 minutes in game 6 of 8, then freak out. But our two toughest games are right at the beginning of this 8 game schedule.

What if, I don’t know, the team thought they could afford to gamble the first two games to make sure they had Zion nearly up to full speed in games 3-8? This isn’t “Zion taking a week off”. It’s Zion missing two weeks in the middle of a pandemic when the season is restarting in July. There’s nothing ordinary about this. It’s been ONE GAME. Against one of two very damn good teams. With the Clippers on deck.

Chill. Why on earth would the team tell people “we NEED to make sure he’s good when we play the Mem, Sac, SAS games?” It dampens the restart. Y’all are gonna be pissed and scream regardless because he missed time and we lost a game we likely would have won if he played the entire time. So what’s the point? Where’s the upside in telling the truth, if that is the truth?

And I’d argue my theory makes a lot more sense than:

- “Aaron Nelson is a moron.”
- “The team is trying to save Gentry’s job.”
- “We’re playing for draft picks.”
- “There’s a phantom injury.”
- “Our front office who has managed to turn around our entire trajectory in one offseason is incompetent.”

Maybe, it’s exactly what it looks like. The team didn’t want to blow out Zion’s knee in July....in the middle of a pandemic... after missing the entire tune up period...with the carrot being dangled being an LAL first round...against one of two teams we could very easily lose against even with Zion healthy. Gentry is pissed because we lost a close game and his job is on the line. The players are frustrated cause they want to win and compete in the postseason... and they legitimately know the talent is better than their record (listen to any J.J. redick ringed podcast if you are curious what our team’s confidence level is).

he has done hardly any 5 on 5 since March, he has been playing at his own speed when he practices so he's not in game shape at all. at some point though Zion needs to stand up and get himself in great shape

pretty much this

Thanks for this brother. Alot of casual Pelicans fans has been pissing me off lately. Like logic goes out the window for some folks man and emotional intelligence which I'm not displaying well right now lol but man Zion at this current phase is more detrimental to us right now with his shitty defense and conditioning tbh. Let the professionals do what they do and bring this kid in right.