Former Pelicans star shares why Zion Williamson is doomed to fail in New Orleans

The New Orleans Pelicans are still awaiting word of when star Zion Williamson will return. He is currently out indefinitely with a hamstring injury and has missed 56% of his career games, leading to concern about whether he will return this season.

Former Pelican star DeMarcus Cousins has weighed in on the situation involving Zion and shared their thoughts on Zion's struggles to stay healthy in New Orleans. Take a look.

Blaming the city on Zion's well-known conditioning struggles might seem like passing the blame on someone other than the player.

Be that as it may, Cousins has a point about New Orleans being a bad spot for him as a player with weight concerns. On the other hand, the Pelicans obviously weren't going to pass up on a chance to take the best player in his draft class over such a seemingly small issue.

Of course, with Zion missing 220 out of 392 possible games, hindsight is 20/20, and his tenure with New Orleans is doomed to fail. Few players have missed that many games early on and gone on to have a long career, and this season has done little to convince people that Zion will change that.

Should the New Orleans Pelicans finally consider trading Zion Williamson?

As the season gets further and further out of reach for the 4-15 Pelicans, and with no Zion return in sight, they should be open to moving him. Of course, his trade value can't be very high at the moment, and it is unlikely to improve much at this rate. After all, he is nearing his mid-20s and has both injury and conditioning concerns.

If another team were to offer something reasonable, then the Pelicans might consider it, but he is still their best player for the time being. With few options, New Orleans should play out the string and see how the season plays out.

With a slew of injuries, the Pelicans probably won't be able to recover enough to make the playoffs in the tough Western Conference. They already find themselves with the third-worst record in the NBA and the worst record in the West and are already five games out of the play-in race.

That isn't insurmountable, but the Pelicans would have to get healthy and soon be able to keep from reaching the point of no return. That will depend largely on Zion and how soon he can come back, however.