NBA Rumors: Pelicans holding out hope Zion Williamson can return for playoffs?

NBA Rumors: The New Orleans Pelicans, for some reason, have still not ruled out Zion Williamson for the remainder of the season. Could he return?

With six games remaining in the regular season, the New Orleans Pelicans are making a strong push to cement themselves as a Play-In Tournament participant. They’re currently in 8th seed of the Western Conference and have been playing much better as of late. Heading into the final week and a half of the season, the Pelicans have won five of its last six games.

And while it’s beginning to look more and more likely that the Pelicans are going to be in the NBA postseason one way or another, this is still a team that has plenty of work to do to actually qualify for the playoffs. And, at least for now, there’s still some hope that Zion Williamson could be back for that.

According to a recent report, Zion is set to get reevaluated at some point next week and a decision on a possible return for the postseason would happen then. While this possible move would make sense for the team, you can’t help but wonder if this would be the smartest move for Zion and the Pelicans.

Should the New Orleans Pelicans bring back Zion Williamson this season?

I suppose the Pelicans would be better suited in being able to measure the risk vs. reward but with his injury history, you can’t help but be a bit hesitant about the idea of bringing Zion back for just a handful of games.

You have to assume that Zion wants to be back and play and that has to at least play some factor in the decision, but it is somewhat strange that the Pelicans have not ruled Zion out yet. There are just six games left in the regular season and maybe a short playoff run after.

Either Zion is a lot closer to returning than many of us realize or they really believe that they can make some noise in the Playoffs if they are healthy. And maybe they can. This is relatively a wide-open Western Conference and even the “favorite” (Denver Nuggets) has been somewhat shaky as of late.

It’ll be interesting to see what the resolution is with Zion and even though I can’t imagine the team bringing him back this season, it seems that there is at least some hope that he can come back.