Pelicans' Zion Williamson addresses frustration with extended injury absence: 'Not being able to play sucks'

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Pelicans star forward Zion Williamson has been sidelined since early January with a hamstring injury, and unfortunately for fans in New Orleans, there remains no real timetable for his return. He has already been ruled out of the team's Play-In Tournament game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and his status beyond that, should the Pelicans win, remains a question mark.

"It's been frustrating," Williamson said of his extended absence while speaking with media members on Tuesday, via ESPN. "Not going to lie to you. It's been very frustrating. Not being able to play sucks."

Williamson had a setback with the hamstring in February, and since then he's had some difficulty dealing with the mental side of the injury. He admitted that he has been dealing with moments of hesitation when trying to perform certain moves, and he doesn't want the issue to negatively impact the Pelicans if he were to play. It's tough for athletes to perform up to their full potential if they're consistently second-guessing themselves out on the floor.

"It's a little bit of a mental battle, because you know when I reaggravated [the injury] back in February, it was tough," Williamson said. "So when I go to make certain moves, there is that hesitation. Sometimes there's not and sometimes there is. And I understand the magnitude of these games coming up and I don't want to be out there hesitating or doing something that may affect my team in a bad way."

When asked when he might be able to return to game action, Williamson provided a pretty simple answer: "When I feel like Zion," he said. When asked to expand on that, here's what he had to say:

"I don't feel like there are any specific benchmarks for being Zion. It's just a matter of like, you know, when I feel like myself. Just feeling like myself and knowing that I can go out there and have a big impact for my team."

This isn't the first injury issue that Williamson has dealt with since the Pelicans made him the top overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. The powerful forward has spent a substantial amount of time on the sideline over the course of his career to this point, and as a result, he's been labeled by some pundits as "injury prone" or "overweight." Some have even questioned his level of passion for the game. Williamson has heard the noise, and it's clear that it bothers him, at least a bit.

"It's tough. I can't lie," Williamson said. "From my perspective, I just wanna play basketball. I wanna hoop, I wanna play the game I love. But the reality of it is whether I check my phone, whether I'm just watching TV, no matter what it is, I can't really escape what the world thinks, what people's opinions are. So, it's frustrating.

"I love this game," he added. "I say it over and over. For those people that think that I just want to sit on the sideline just to sit over there, I don't know why people think that, but nah, it sucks. I want to be playing basketball for real."

The fact that he's so good when he plays makes all the missed time especially frustrating for fans, and probably for Williamson too. In the 29 games he appeared in this season, he averaged 26 points, seven rebounds and 4.6 assists per performance while shooting 60% from the field. He was the only player in the league to post that stat line.

When he's healthy, Williamson is one of the most explosive and electric players in the entire Association, and thus the league is better off when he's playing. Hopefully, he can start to put these injury issues behind him and get back out on the court in the near future.