Zion Williamson is finally feeling like himself again

MIAMI — At the start of the summer, as he waded into an offseason workout program that he hoped would build his body back into dynamic shape, Zion Williamson began setting his alarm for 4:30 a.m.

For the first week or so, those early wake-up calls were unpleasant. Sure, he knew the forms of torture that awaited him in South Florida, where his personal team had set up shop: 400-meter sprints on the track, rep after rep in the weight room. But rolling out of bed before dawn?

“Tough,” Williamson said. “But after that first week and a half, it was satisfying. Like, there was a purpose behind it. I would see 4:30 on my phone, and I knew it was time to go to work.”

In the process, Williamson became a big nap guy. Before his nightly workouts, he would sleep through the afternoon. There were times, he said, when he wound up feeling detached from the world, as if he had missed everything that had happened that day.

For someone used to being the center of attention, the summer was a reprieve in a way — a chance to recalibrate his mind and restore his confidence. Now, armed with a new five-year contract extension worth about $190 million, Williamson is back with the New Orleans Pelicans, back as one of the presumptive faces of the NBA, and back to face the same question that has shadowed him since the team made him the top overall pick in the 2019 draft: Can he stay on the court?

Since his days at Duke, when his dunks vaporized defenders, and through his celebrated debut with the Pelicans, when he scored on seven straight possessions after returning from knee surgery, Williamson, 22, has tantalized fans with his potential. So big. So powerful. And so seemingly susceptible to injury.

A 6-foot-6 forward entering his fourth season, Williamson has appeared in just 85 games. After making his first All-Star team in 2020-21, he missed all of last season with a broken right foot. But Williamson considers it progress — for good reason — that he no longer thinks about his foot or the surgery he had on it. In fact, he said, he forgets that he broke it in the first place.

“It’s only when someone mentions it,” he said, “and I’m like, Oh, yeah, I did break my foot.”

Sure enough, there is cautious optimism in New Orleans, where the Pelicans showed themselves to be a resilient bunch without Williamson last season. In February, CJ McCollum was the centerpiece Pelicans acquisition in a big trade with the Portland Trail Blazers that helped jolt the franchise forward. The Pelicans closed the regular season by winning 13 of their final 23 games, and then defeated the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Clippers in the play-in tournament to make the playoffs.

“I think we got a taste of what it can be like if we stay healthy and do the right things,” McCollum said.

Even though the Pelicans lost to the top-seeded Phoenix Suns in the first round of the playoffs, they pushed the series to six games, and several first-year players — Herbert Jones, Jose Alvarado, Trey Murphy III — played important minutes.

“It was massive,” said Larry Nance Jr., a veteran forward who came to New Orleans as a part of the deal for McCollum. “When I was young, I didn’t get that type of experience. Now that they’ve been there, they’re just going to hunger for that level of basketball even more.”

After spending part of the season quietly rehabilitating at Nike’s facilities outside Portland, Oregon — which caused no small amount of agita for fans wondering about his whereabouts — Williamson returned to New Orleans for the Pelicans’ late-season run. He enjoyed watching his teammates succeed, he said, especially after he had gone through so many of his own struggles.

“It definitely mentally matured me beyond my age,” Williamson said of last season. “It made me accept that certain things are going to happen. I can’t control everything. So control what I can control.”

At the start of training camp last month, Nance was immediately struck by what he described as Williamson’s “gravity,” by his ability to pull defenders into his orbit whenever he had the ball. His presence makes life easier for his teammates, Nance said, as long as they “learn to move around him.”

Few players have that sort of outsize effect on opponents, Nance said. He cited “super superstars” like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, both of whom Nance played alongside earlier in his career, along with Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks.

“It’s the freaks,” Nance said. “You know who they are.”

Asked what separates those players from everyone else, Nance said, “They do what they want with the ball. They’re a threat to score. They’re a threat to pass. They’re a threat to dunk on three guys’ heads if you don’t give them the defensive respect they deserve.”

In recent weeks, Nance has regularly matched up with Williamson at practice, a role that Nance said he embraced. He wanted to make Williamson work for baskets. He wanted to be physical with him. He wanted to help prepare him for the regular season.

“The only thing I want from him is to see him become the Zion Williamson he wants to become, and I think I can help him with that,” Nance said. “Honestly, there are times when we’re like, ‘Are you sure he didn’t play last year?’ You can see his timing coming back, his handle coming back.”

In a preseason game against the Miami Heat on Wednesday, Williamson offered up a bit of everything — some highlights, some rust and another injury. In the process of cramming 11 points and four assists into 11 minutes of playing time, he rolled his left ankle on a drive to the basket in the second quarter.

With a noticeable limp, Williamson remained on the court for several more minutes. And he produced, shoveling a pass to McCollum for a 3-pointer before sizing up Nikola Jovic, a 19-year-old forward for the Heat who, on a subsequent possession, found himself defending Williamson on the perimeter. Williamson treated Jovic as if he were a soggy paper towel, busting through him for a layup while drawing a foul. Williamson soon left the game and did not return for the second half.

At a Miami-area high school the next day, he was a spectator at an afternoon practice as he received treatment on his ankle. It was another setback — albeit a minor one — in a young career full of them. His availability for the Pelicans’ season opener against the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday is uncertain.

“A little sore,” he said. “Just kind of turned it over a little bit.”

Ankle injury aside, Williamson said, he is honing his timing and his rhythm. He said that he could get to his preferred spots on the court, but that finishing around the rim was a work in progress.

“Shots that I usually kiss off the glass, I just sometimes feel like I don’t have the right touch,” he said. “With some shots, it’s there. But that’ll come with time.”

For a player long accustomed to imposing his will, and using his size and strength to hammer dunks, draw defenders and create for teammates, Williamson has had to develop in new ways over the past year and a half, by being resourceful and patient and determined.

It was the only way he could get back to being himself again.