Jason Williams is a complete head case

http://espn.go.com/magazine/friend_20010509.html

It's been 88 games now, and Jason Williams still can't get off the bench late in the fourth quarter. We're 88 games in, and "White Chocolate" or "White Boy" or "JWill" or "JWon't" -- or whatever his name is these days -- is absolutely no factor. He starts, but he doesn't finish, and you wonder finally if all the pampering has taken its toll.

They're afraid of him, you know. They're afraid he'll snap. We're talking about his handlers here; we're talking about his agent, his daddy, his brother. They'll all tell you, "Don't ask him about his mother." Or, "Don't ask him about the weed he smoked." Or, '"Only ask about basketball." And you start wondering if he's ever going to grow up, this fragile wanna-be point guard who his coach refuses to trust. This fragile wanna-be point guard who is all flash and had all of two points against the Lakers Tuesday night.

He is not an awful kid, although we all know there's anger there -- ridiculous, uninformed anger. Earlier this year, at Golden State, he made those ethnic slurs to the Asian spectators, telling them he'd shoot 'em like in Vietnam. Someone should've made him pay for that, and we're talking game checks, several of them. This is the son of a West Virginia cop, and he has snapped at fans from San Antonio to Portland, and you know his daddy the cop hated that.

"He does that, and I tell him, I don't like it, I don't like when he talks to the crowd," says the daddy, Terry Williams. "I think it takes away from his game, and I've told him. I say, 'You're in the game, and you're chatting with people in the crowd during the game, it's taking away from your game. He doesn't say anything. He listens. ... He can chit-chat with the players on the floor and talk trash and stuff if he wants to, but I just don't think he should talk to people in the crowd. Whether he's listening to me, that's a different story."

Someone needs to make him listen, make him play defense, make him into a player. Because he's 25 now, and he's already been suspended five games under the league's drug policy, and his dog is actually named Sweet Pea after a chronic drug user named Lloyd Daniels. He is already self-mutilating his body. He has his right fingers tattooed with W-H-I-T and he has his left fingers tattooed with E-B-O-Y, and it makes his daddy the cop, and his brother, who's also a cop, cringe. "It's ridiculous,"Terry Williams says.

It's too late to do something about it now, but maybe they could've done something back then. Back when he was a junior high and high school kid, back when his mother and father split up bitterly. Back when he began refusing to speak to her, back when he was ticked off because he'd heard rumors she'd slept with another man.

They all saw him turn into a recluse then, saw him hide in a gym every night. On the one hand, it could've been worse. He could've turned to drinking. But he never did -- even now he won't drink beer. But by the time he hit the University of Florida, he admits he began smoking joints, and he admits he turned antisocial, and his father and his brother would try to come down on him, but his father is just generally too gentle of a man. And it was too late by then. He'd tune his father out, the same way he'd begun to tune all you fans out by the time he got to the NBA.

You should hear him talking about autographs. He hates giving them, can't look you in the eye when you ask for one. He's ashamed of something, maybe himself, but he's 25 now, and you wonder if he's going to get over it, if he's ever going to grow up.

"There's some crazy people around here," Jason Williams says of his Sacramento fans, "and I'm thankful for all the fans I have and all the publicity I get, but I just want to stay at home, and some people can't understand that. But that's just what I want to do. People say, 'Ah, I'd die to be in your shoes or die to have people asking me for my autograph everywhere I go', and I tell them, no, you wouldn't. You don't want that, you don't WANT it.

"Sometimes it's annoying. Any little kid that asks for an autograph, I'm going to say yes, unless I'm at the mall or something. 'Cause if I tell a little kid yes at the mall, then I'll have a line of people. I just try to tell them, no, I'm sorry, I don't do that. But I'll shake your hand.

"And I'm apologizing to you for nothing, really. And then if they say, 'Well, why won't you sign?' Well now I'm going to be an a------. Because I don't have to tell you why. Who are you? You know what I mean? I'm being nice enough just to shake your hand, and to tell you I'm sorry for nothing. So don't disrespect me when I tell you, 'No, I'm sorry, I don't do that.'

"Everybody thinks I should give an autograph whenever they ask. And everybody thinks I should be the way they want me to be. But I'm not going to do that. I'm me. I'm going to be me. Just like Slim Shady says, 'I am what you say I am.' Or whatever."

So, that's why his father moved 3,000 miles to Sacramento three years ago, to see that his son behaved. To be there when the walls collapsed around him. Because, after his amazing rookie season, that's what's happened. Jason didn't work hard the summer after his first season, which is why his sophomore NBA season was a bust. He did work hard last summer, but he's still the same inconsistent guy. You wonder why. His coach pulls him out of games for hoisting absurd 30-footers, and he still doesn't stop hoisting. His coach, Rick Adelman, is the only one who seems to be trying to crack the whip. His father won't do it. He lends an ear, but he doesn't want to tell him the harsh truth. It's too bad.

Sometimes, his agent Bill Pollak, tries to get through to the kid. But he seems misguided, too. Before we at the magazine interviewed Jason earlier this season, Pollak was adamant that there be no questions about Jason's mother, that there be no reference in our story to his mother. "If he sees something about his mother, he'll crack," Pollak said. "I'll have to pick up the pieces. He's doing so well. Don't ruin it. Don't set us back."

So Bill Pollak refused to trust us, and he wouldn't let us do a cover shoot with Jason because of it, and he protected him like a 12-year-old, and if Jason can't be asked a question about his mother at 25 years old, then what can the Sacramento Kings truly expect of him, in the playoffs, at crunch time?

His teammates aren't helping any, either. Chris Webber doesn't tell Jason to suck it up and play defense and share the ball, because Chris Webber is Jason's guy, and Chris Webber is not going to do what Charles Oakley did to Vince Carter.

"I mean, you can't exaggerate how close we've become," Webber says of Williams. "Since the first day. Since I did the first drill with him I knew it was going to be something special with me and him. I knew it. Just the way he handled the ball and wore his shorts and wore his shirt, probably the way that not most traditional people would like. But I knew I could tell by his style that he wasn't afraid, and that's all you can ask for.

"I just remember him being himself, that little swagger. It may appear to some to be lackadaisical, but it's just really him getting into his groove. Just watching him, I remember him just showing what he had.

"And the black guys, when they saw him play, they weren't saying, 'He plays black,' they were saying, 'Jason's got game' or 'He played in playgrounds.' And that's about it. And that's the first thing I noticed about him. Like I said, the way he wore his clothes. It wasn't that he wore 'em like a black guy or baggy. Guys at Michigan wore their shorts baggy that way. White or football players. It's a fraternity of athletes that kind of have that ... we're different than the other athletes. He's in that group of athletes that feel like, yo, I'm not just an average athlete, I've got to do this. I'm trying to take my game to another level.

"And I think all my friends, whether it's been at the barber shop or my buddies that have met him, they love his game. They'll say, 'That white boy can play.' That's about the extent of it. Or, 'Where did he learn those moves or what does he do to get the handles like that?' "

What Webber says is well and good, and Williams truly is a remarkable playground player, from the elbow passes he did in the rookie all-star game a year ago to the drop-kick passes he does in practice. And there's the time he bet teammate Vlade Divac he could bank three shots in a row off the 24 second clock and into the hoop. He missed the first one on purpose, just so Vlade would go ahead and bet him. And then when it was an official bet, JWill hit three in a row.

He should be the next white Globetrotter. But the thing is, Jason Williams says he wants to play in the NBA, wants to play at crunch time, wants to be the man with the ball. That's why he took that ugly three-point shot at the end of one playoff game against Phoenix and that's why he challenged Shaq on a late drive in Game 1 against L.A. And it's amazing he's even been in the game at those times, because on Tuesday night, once again, Adelman wouldn't use him, wouldn't dare use him.

And so Jason Williams slouches on the bench now, with a towel draped over his head, in full pout position, and you are hoping and praying somebody, anybody will come over and say, "Sit up straight. Sit up straight, once and for all." It has to happen. One of these days, it has to.

Some of the article seems a bit excessive, like the whole "body mutilation." Getting "White Boy" tattooed on your knuckles is not mutilation. I bet this guy doesn't think that Shaq's superman tat is mutilation. If JWill was lighting it up and playing well, everyone would say his "White Boy" tattoo was clever and witty...

But the rest of the article is very telling about this kid. He always seems just out of control on the court, like his erratic play is his own way of running from his own personal problems, and any moment he could snap.

Maybe some day he will get it together in his head. If he does, i think he could be one of the most exciting point guards in the league, but if he doesn't, he will be just another head case who had what it takes in body, but not in mind.

See Cato, Kelvin.


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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

[This message has been edited by RunninRaven (edited May 10, 2001).]

 

I agree that it would be nice if Williams could turn it around, because he is a good player, but I don't think the writer violated any agreement. He said that the agent told him he couldn't ask Jason any questions about his mom if they interviewed him. Because of these things, it looks as if ESPN turned down the interview.

But as for the rest of it, it is sad that the writer feels it necessary to make jokes at Williams expense, because it generally is not a good thing to kick a man when he is down (except Pippen, who I do not regard as a man ), but if Williams wants to be able to make it in this league, he will have to learn to put up with far more than a single writer's stinging literary barbs.

Personally, I never had a clue as to how bad Williams was, mentally, until I read this article (and that is still taking into account the tendency of writers to exaggerate).

But you are right, the way the article is written, the author sounds like a jerk, possibly even a bit upset that he couldn't conduct an interview the way he really wanted.

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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

[This message has been edited by RunninRaven (edited May 10, 2001).]

 

To compare Williams's shooting percentage to Kidd's proves nothing, because that is the main knock on Jason Kidd's game as well. How about comparing William's shooting percentage (regular season, so there is an actual decent sample size) to other decent point guards who aren't criticized as having a bad shot.

Notice I didn't even get into the fact that shooting percentage does not indicate whether or not you have a good jump shot.

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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.