Carmelo Anthony believes Zion Williamson has been too coddled by Pelicans: This is the dark side of player empowerment

NBA legend Carmelo Anthony did not hold back in expressing his disappointment with New Orleans Pelicans star forward Zion Williamson. His criticism arose after Williamson poorly handled things while the team struggled with a dismal 9-32 record. After missing almost 27 games due to injuries, Williamson finally returned. However, his return was overshadowed by a one-game suspension for arriving late to a team flight, which only fueled Anthony’s frustration. “With Zion, in my opinion, everybody always coveted him,” said Anthony. “He doesn’t have the resume that we all would be looking for, that we think he should be at, at this point in his career, but he has the star power. So when you have the star power everything else comes with that. “Inside that organization has to be some real conversations with this man. Do you want to be here, if you want to be here, we’ve got to figure this s—t out. What you’re doing being an hour late, that s—t is unacceptable.” -via Clutch Points / January 17, 2025

Cameron Tabatabaie: Jayson Tatum got a nice little gift from Carmelo Anthony pic.x.com/HCJJH3lEYO -via Twitter @CTabatabaie / January 17, 2025

You know they talk about pure hoopers and skill. If you had to draft a starting five, with guys like Jamal and yourself, who would you pick? Pure hoopers—how many players? Five hoopers, is that what you’re saying? KEVIN DURANT: I’m going to leave out a lot of dudes, but if I had to pick five off the top—because you’re just putting me on the spot like that—I’mma go: Kyrie Irving at the one. It’s a debate between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan at the two. I know you’re from Chicago, so you might hear this and get confused, but purely skill-wise—Kobe. Yeah, Kobe. He’s got that three-ball, he can handle, he’s got the wiggle, and he can do all the technical stuff MJ can do. So, it’s a toss-up, but I’mma go with Kobe at the two. Alright, for the three, I’mma go Melo—no, actually, I’mma go T-Mac. Yeah, T-Mac at my three. T-Mac at the three, for sure. I’ll have to play the four since it’s my team. And at the five, I’mma go KG. I think KG is underrated, man. Too underrated. He’s just so underrated. -via YouTube / January 16, 2025

Veterans like CJ McCollum want to see more consistency before calling the [Zion Williamson] suspension a success. “I think he’s taking strides in the right direction,” McCollum said. “I think it’s just more about asserting yourself and applying yourself each day. We know what needs to be done on a day-to-day basis in order to be successful. We know what winning habits look like and what types of habits aren’t necessarily built towards success.” -via Clutch Points / January 17, 2025

Bobby Marks: Tim McMahon and I wrote this article back at the end of December. Really, the theme was trying to figure out what Zion’s value is. He’s like the mystery man, the hardest guy to figure out in the NBA as far as what his value actually is. I was shockingly surprised that his value was higher than I thought it would be. Both of us talked to a ton of teams, and there was value there. But man, he’s an enigma—and it’s not even about the on-court stuff. It’s like, you’re out rehabbing, you come back, and now… I don’t know. For two months, by the way, he looked good. He looked really good physically. That first game he came back, I was so excited. We wrote about it because, you know, he’s got these weight clauses in his contract, right? He’s going to hit those weight clauses. He looked great. He looked physical, man. He’s out there doing windmill 360s. -via YouTube / January 16, 2025