Zion Williamson is in 'impeccable' shape and yearning to experience the playoffs with the Pelicans

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Zion Williamson smiled politely, but kept his answer brief when asked how he would summarize his first seven years as an NBA player.

“I'm not where I want to be," Williamson said, nodding in apparent acknowledgement of how little the New Orleans Pelicans have accomplished since drafting the magnetic power forward first overall out of Duke in 2019 . "I'm not where I need to be.”

For the eighth time on Monday, the 26-year-old Williamson donned a Pelicans uniform for the franchise's media day. If he's still wearing a jersey when the playoffs start in mid April, it will be a first in his highly lucrative, yet largely unsatisfying NBA career.

His new coach, Jamahl Mosley , will be his fifth.

“It’s not the way I would have wanted it to be, but that’s just part of this business," Williamson said. "All you can do is just adjust with it and hope that things get better.”

Williamson has missed 278 career games — including the entire 2021-22 season — because of a series of injuries and struggles with fitness. But when he has played, he has averaged nearly 24 points, mixing his uncanny ability to finish through contact in the paint with explosive, above-the-rim highlights.

Now Williamson appears committed, perhaps like never before, to do his part to improve the Pelicans' fortunes. He has reported for training camp in “impeccable condition,” according Pelicans basketball operations chief Joe Dumars.

The 6-foot-6 Williamson is listed at 277 pounds, down from 284 — a figure that had appeared on the club's official roster for the previous seven seasons.

“At some point, you just want the player to get it," said Dumars, now entering his second season with New Orleans. "If someone has to call you every morning to drag you out of bed, to get you to work out, you don’t get it yet. But when you’re up and you’re doing it, and you’re the one leading it, then you start looking at that guy and you go, ‘Okay, he’s good.’

“That’s what I saw from him this year,” Dumars continued. “You can’t play 82 games and not be in great shape. And so we talked about him being in impeccable condition and he has done that."

Dumars said he also spoke with Williamson about becoming more of a leader and diversifying his game, namely by becoming a more consistent and willing jump shooter so that he can punish teams who defend him by collapsing into the paint.

Williamson spent the summer “working with different people, looking at the game different ways, just trying to find different ways to get better,” he said. “I’ve improved with mentally trusting myself and trusting my game, just trusting the work I’ve put in to the point to where I’m not second-guessing myself.”

Williamson summarized his new attitude toward shooting jump shots as: “If I miss, I miss. The next shot’s going in.”

Mosley, who coached the Orlando Magic for the previous five seasons, spent much of his first summer with the the Pelicans traveling to meet players at their offseason workouts. Williamson, who makes his home in New Orleans but spent part of his offseason in his native South Carolina, complimented Mosley's approach.

“He checks in a lot," Williamson said. "Since coach got hired, as a unit, we’ve been stronger. ... You can tell it’s not just basketball for him. He cares about the individual."

Mosley, meanwhile, said Williamson has been receptive to exploring ways to improving the Pelicans' fortunes.

“There’s so many other pieces of his game that people don’t recognize," Mosley said, noting Williamson's ability to pass and his potential to shoot from outside the paint.

“The challenge for him that we want to put on his plate is, how do you make your teammates better?” Mosley said. "Can you continue to expand your game more to where it’s not just being predictable to what you’re going to do night in and night out?”

While Williamson, who is under contract through 2027-28, is eligible for an extension this season, he said he and Dumars agree that they need to focus first on turning the Pelicans into winners and that contract talks can wait.

The Pelicans went 26-56 last season — their second straight season with fewer than 27 wins. Beyond adding high-scoring wing Bennedict Mathurin in free agency, Dumars made few offseason moves and brought back virtually the same core players.

But several of those players — namely Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III and Dejounte Murray — labored through injuries last season, and have returned healthy for Tuesday's first practice of training camp.

“I trust in Joe’s vision," Williamson said. “It definitely is good to see a lot of familiar faces back in the locker room. Relationships have grown, bonds have grown and I think it’s for the positive if anything.”

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