Timeline of Zion's Injury- Investigation by Pelicans Columbia on Twitter
Bringing this over from reddit/twitter. Pelicans Columbia on Twitter went through all the social media posts and came up with a timeline. From that, depending on the injury and surgery, we can probably gauge as to whether he will be back for opening night. Zion is out of the pool and doing some on the court drills apparently.
May 4: After the Pelicans were virtually out of contention for the play-in, Zion underwent a series of medical checkups to determine his health. It was discovered that he had been playing a couple of games with a fractured left ring finger, thus missing the last six games of the 2020-21 season.
May 17: private and public end-of-season interviews. Williamson publicly states that he asked David Griffin to bring Lonzo Ball back, and that he plans to meet with Brandon Ingram multiple times throughout the summer to train his offensive repertoires.
June 8 and 12: First public appearances after leaving the Pelicans facilities. He was in New Orleans with his close circle of friends wearing tall boots, making it impossible that he was already injured at the time, and without any immobilizer on his injured toe.
June 15 and 27: Zion continues in New Orleans and visits two traditional bucket hat stores , a classic cap style adopted by rappers in the 90's. Interestingly, Zion visited these stores at the time when he released his collection of this type of hats with Jordan. He can be seen standing up without any problem and in the case of June 27 his visit was to the Keith and James store.
June 28: Brandon Ingram and Trajan Langdon are seen in Game 5 between the Suns and Clippers for the Western Conference Finals for Ingram to experience the postseason experience live. According to Jake Fisher, Langdon and Ingram were expected to join Fred Vinson and Zion Williamson but the latter canceled the trip. Some journalists allude to strict business commitments, but the day before he was in New Orleans visiting the cap store.
Williamson would have a problem taking a private flight to Los Angeles, staying there for the two hours of the game, which was played at a time when no commercial engagement takes place.
Until then, Williamson had not met with Ingram for training, possibly due to the rehabilitation of his broken finger, which had already passed more than six weeks. Neither of them were selected to represent the United States at the Olympics, and Zion apparently had little interest in starting his preparation so soon. Quite the opposite of what was done by players like Jrue Holiday or Devin Booker, who two days after playing the NBA finals flew 16 hours to get to Tokyo and play another basketball tournament. Different approaches, to say the least.
July 10: During a stay in Los Angeles, for which the start date is unknown, Zion visited influencers known as the Dobre twins. These influencers are dancers and have proven to be basketball fans. Zion could be seen in different videos standing up and even shooting at the hoop with his influencer friends, so it is ruled out that at this point he had already had his finger injury.
July 12 - Two days after Williamson's visit to influencers, several of the roster players gathered in Phoenix, Arizona to train together. As he himself stated on the recent Pelicans Media Day, he was unable to spend time with the team due to his injury, so it can be assumed that he was not present at this training series. The only margin of excuse that Williamson has is that he was injured precisely between July 10 and 12, days in which there is no documentation of his activities. These workouts were scheduled by Brandon Ingram, who moved to that city throughout the summer for preparation, so it would be disappointing to find that the injury occurred outside of the margin of excuse raised above.
July 31st: only day evidence is found of Zion Williamson's injury was published. Between July 10 and this date there is no other photograph that shows any activity. The famous star barber Ray Santos posted a story on Instagram of a haircut that he performed on Williamson this day, and everything was normal beforehand. However, the most detailed will notice that in the background there is a wheelchair that is potentially from Zion. Fifth metatarsal injuries are not chronic but delicate, so the use of a wheelchair instead of crutches for mobility is convenient considering the 300 pounds of weight that Zion's foot must support. So far there are no official reports that he has used a wheelchair, they are all speculation.
August 8: NBA Summer League 2021 begins. This date is important because according to Griffin, Zion's injury occurred prior to this event. These statements were enough for people to understand why he did not attend any of his teammates 'games, something that players like Brandon Ingram, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Devonte' Graham and even Josh Hart, who by then was still an agent, did. free.
August 15, 16 and 18 - Just two weeks after the wheelchair photo and with the Pelicans vying for the Summer League title, Zion Williamson left for Durham, North Carolina to visit Duke University, the one that feels her alma mater and her home after having spent 10 months of her life there, less than half of her journey in New Orleans. There he was seen without problems to use his now common high boots, shoes not recommended at all for someone who has not fully recovered from an operation on the fifth metatarsal. The photographs were published by the same social networks of the university and by several members of the Duke staff.
August 20: In the morning he was at a publicity event with Mountain Dew in Los Angeles, where he met Zach LaVine. In the afternoon he returned to Durham and visited a Mexican food truck called "Birrler?a Toro Rojo". That same night he was in a disco in the same city called Luna Night Club, as can be seen in the following photograph. Much commitment to rehabilitate from his injury, of course.
August 22: To continue a brief leave to enjoy his youth, Zion attended a Duke frat party, an open secret thanks to rumors surfacing on Reddit. However, these reports indicate that around this holiday season Zion missed some important team meetings, which seems false considering the dates of the team meetings and Williamson's location at the time.
August 23 and 24: on a tour of North Carolina visiting different stores, including footwear and jewelry such as Courtside and Raleigh Diamond Jewerly.
August 28: First photographic record of Zion's stay in Los Angeles visiting The Showroom clothing store .
September 8: Visit Visit Dream Scape , a virtual reality role-playing game located in LA, along with your close friends.
September 10: At the same time that his classmates were traveling to Nashville to participate in a camp organized by Brandon Ingram, supported by all members of the organization, Zion Williamson attended a high-school football game in Los Angeles between St. John Bosco and St. Louis. By this time, Zion's injury would have happened between 6 and 8 weeks ago.
September 11 - Reaffirming his passion for football and his null intentions to join the team in Nashville to complete his rehab there and build team chemistry, Zion attends the Stanford-USC game.
As found, Zion Williamson's injury occurred anytime between July 10 and July 31. According to Jeff Stots, fifth metatarsal injuries that require surgery have an estimated operating time of 6-11 weeks depending on the severity of the injury. In this case, Zion was already walking and wearing normal shoes by August 15, a date that is 5 weeks from July 10 and 2 weeks from July 31, so it is quite possible that the date of the operation was close to the first date. It is very possible due to the recovery times that the injury deprived him of any basketball activity to date, so at least for training in Phoenix he is excused.