Pelicans executive dismisses trade rumours: ‘We never had a single conversation that Zion (Williamson) was a part of’

Ever since Pelicans star Zion Williamson started getting involved in off-court scandals this offseason, quite the amount of trade rumors have appeared placing the young athlete outside of New Orleans. Most recently, he’s being linked to the San Antonio Spurs, but a couple of weeks ago the media thought he’d be transferred to the Portland Trail Blazers. 

Pelicans Executive VP of Basketball Operations David Griffin decided to attend the press and finally put an end to all the speculation surrounding his team’s foward. During a Summer League appearance, he sat down with SiriusXM NBA Radio with hosts Amin Elhassan and Justin Termine.

“I think what’s unfortunate is he is a name that generates clicks no matter what the link says. ‘Zion puts on his socks.’ People click on that,” the executive assured. “And so it makes it really easy for people to manufacture rumor around him because they don’t have to have any kind of actual credibility behind what they say to generate clicks.”

Zion Williamson trade rumors ‘manufactured’ for clicks: Pelicans’ David Griffin https://t.co/A74d0oXOts pic.twitter.com/6CAHX7dk9Y

— New York Post (@nypost) July 12, 2023

“And we’ve, as a society, this isn’t true of sports, this is true across all platforms, reality doesn’t matter anymore. Generating clicks matters. And so, unfortunately for Zion, he’s just, he’s an oddity and somebody that people pay a great deal of attention to and manufacture a lot of stories around,” he insisted.

Griffin believes that superstars like Zion, who has the potential of becoming the league’s MVP at some point in his career, will always be surrounded by rumors.

“We never had a single conversation that Zion was part of,” he guaranteed. “I think people perceive that we would be willing to move off of Zion because of all the injuries, because there’s always so much noise around Zion. And fortunately for us, the noise never actually matches what we’re really experiencing.”

However, the show’s host still wasn’t gonna let this topic slide, as he asked Griffin one more time if he had really not received a single call at least asking for Zion. The executive repeated the same, as if he was a broken record.

“No, we didn’t. And I think one of the reasons for that is people understand who he is to our franchise and what he allows us to do. So people don’t tend to call you and chase things that they know you’re not gonna do,” he stated.

Last week Zion broke his silence on Gilbert Arena’s podcast and admitted he’s out to make amends and fix past mistakes

Just as Pelicans star Zion Williamson has endured a long spell of injuries in the past years and recently was crucified in social media for allegedly messing around with porn star Moriah Mills while announcing he’s got a baby on the way, he’s spent these past months in silence, awaiting for the storm to pass by to finally open up about it.

Last week he was invited to former NBA player Gilbert Arena’s podcast called “Gil’s Arena”, and he gave a truly honest take on many subjects he’s been held accountable for.

“When I’m sitting on the sidelines, watching my teammates and certain games, they lose, I’m like, S***, I know. I know. If I was out there, I can change the outcome of it. So whether people want to believe it or not, when I’m on the sideline, man that hurt me more than anything. I just want to hoop,” the player shared.

Just before his latest health issue hit him back on January 1, the New Orleans squad was standing at the top of the Western Conference table, but immediately fell down once their star foward was sidelined.

“At the end of the day, people are going to give their opinions, and what I can say is I do respect brutal honesty. I’d rather somebody be brutally honest with me than try to sugarcoat because at the end of the day, if they are honest with me, I know what I need to do to fix it,” the 24-year-old explained.

Last season Williamson averaged 26 points, 7 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per match, but only managed to play 29 games due to injuries.