Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Not really something that should change anyone's expectations or timetable imo, they told us like 2 weeks ago that he'd be checked in 2/3 weeks again to see if he was ready to return and that he'd be doing 1v0, 5v0 stuff for that time span.
Now we know he seems to be on track and is cleared for full contact starting with 1v1 and they'll check again in just over a week (8 days) to make sure that's fine before clearing him for full contact. So that's in line with that 3 week timetable they told us about roughly 2 weeks ago.
Of course, if he is cleared in 8 days for full 5v5, you still expect them to give him a week or so of 5v5 to warm up before bringing him out on to the court, and one would expect them to want him to return in a home game.
So 24th + one week takes us to Dec 1st which is the day we play Dallas at home, and the first home game after that is Denver Nuggets on December 8th.
So tentative December 8th timeline for Zion's return? That seems to make sense based on the info we've been given so far, which of course is limited.
That would be game 27 of this season for us - and we're 15 games in now (2-13 record). So 11 more Zionless games based on this timetable, and those 11 games are against:
- Miami
- Clippers x2
- Pacers
- Wolves
- Wizards
- Jazz x2
- Mavs x2
- Rockets
That's a pretty rough span. With Ingram back, based on how we've played the last few games, I could see us winning maybe 4 of those games. Which would mean Zion would return to a Pelicans team with a 6-20 record for his first game. It would take a miracle for that team to become a playoff team, even if Zion is excellent this year. It would take an all-time season from him, like NBA First Team, top 3 MVP candidate finish, for him to be able to drag us to .500.