NBA: Zion Williamson still has Brandon Ingram as wingman–for now

New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson (1) talks to the media during the NBA basketball team’s media day at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (David Grunfeld/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

NEW ORLEANS  — Pelicans star power forward Zion Williamson still has Brandon Ingram as a wingman for now.

They’re entering their sixth straight training camp as Pelicans teammates this week after an offseason in which their NBA paths appeared to be diverging.

The 24-year-old Williamson sought to strengthen ties to the organization this summer, working more closely with team staff and joining teammates for optional workouts as he continues to seek his first playoff appearance in what has been an injury-plagued career.

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Pelicans are back to work and @JoelMeyersNBA and @adaniels33 give you a recap of the first day of training camp 🏀 pic.twitter.com/Wfx0tPIm7I

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) October 1, 2024

Williamson “is every bit locked in,” first-year general manager Bryson Graham said Monday during the club’s media day, held annually on the eve of training camp. “There’s been a level of buy-in with Z that is very, very encouraging as an organization and from a team standpoint.”

Ingram, who is 27 and entering his final season under contract, was more distant from the team than usual this summer. He sounds uncertain even now about whether the business side of pro basketball will end his tenure in New Orleans sooner than later.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I just expect to play basketball,” Ingram said. “As long as I do the basketball part, the business is going to handle itself, whether it’s here or whether it’s somewhere else.

“I’ve just got to continue to put the work in and that’s all I’ve been kind of thinking about to keep me going forward,” added Ingram, who averaged 20.8 points last season. “I’ve got to do my part. I’ve got to play the game. I’ve got to be consistent, be healthy and show who I am.”

The Pelicans have made the playoffs twice since drafting Williamson first overall out of Duke in 2019. But each time, the star power forward was injured.

The closest Williamson has come to experiencing a playoff game was last season’s Western Conference play-in loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. Williamson scored 40 points that night before injuring his hamstring with three minutes left in a tie game.

New Orleans bounced back to beat Sacramento in a second play-in contest, qualifying for the playoffs as an eighth seed. But with Williamson sidelined and Ingram in the early days of his return from a knee injury, the Pelicans were swept by Oklahoma City in the first round.

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Williamson, who averaged 24.7 points in a career-high 70 regular-season games last season, called his exit from the play-in loss to the Lakers “a big driving force” in his commitment to conditioning and nutrition this summer.

“You just feel like you worked so hard to get to a good point and then something like that happens,” Williamson said. “It’s rough, but you’ve just got to find a way to get back up.”

Pelicans executives speak glowingly about Williamson’s recent dedication and “maturation.”

“Zion is at that stage in his career where he understands just how important the summers are for him to work on his game,” Graham said.

Ingram did not attend voluntary team workouts over the summer. He also posted a clip on social media of a motivational speaker discussing the pitfalls of staying “in environments where people don’t know the true value of you.”

David Griffin, the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations, said Ingram skipped the optional workouts because he was still focused on fully recovering from last-season’s knee injury.

“He wasn’t ready for that physically and he knew it,” said Griffin, who would not speculate on whether the club might reach an extension with Ingram before or during this season.

“I don’t know, really,” Griffin said. “My anticipation is that he’s going to do what he has always done, and that’s deliver for us.

“Nothing has to happen quickly,” Griffin continued, adding that while the Pelicans and Ingram have not been able to agree on a contract extension, “we’re in a really good space with him just on a human level.”

Ingram was the subject of trade speculation this summer, in part because the Pelicans allowed 6-foot-11 starting center Jonas Valanciunas to leave in free agency and do not have an established starting center on the roster now.

But New Orleans has an abundance of guards and wings, including newly acquired point guard Dejounte Murray; veteran shooting guard CJ McCollum; forwards Trey Murphy and Herb Jones; and Ingram.

Griffin emphasized that the Pelicans have “more talent than we’ve ever had.”

“What often happens is you get fixated on what you don’t have,” Griffin said. “There will be a great deal of fixation over, ‘What are we going to do at center?’

“And my answer to that would be, ‘We’re going to figure it out,” Griffin continued. “We’ve got the kind of talent that can play a variety of different ways.”