by Jay Williams
Dedication
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY EXTRAORDINARY PARENTS,
DAVID AND ALTHEA WILLIAMS, WHO HAVE BEEN BY MY
SIDE EVERY STEP OF THE WAY TO HELP ME BECOME
THE MAN I AM TODAY.
Epigraph
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
—Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
1. Perfect
2. Imperfect
3. Gray Area
4. Rafters
5. Freshman
6. Duke
7. Decision
8. Bulls
9. Rehab
10. Complications
11. Trials
12. Last Ride
13. The Game
14. Mended
15. Forgiven
Photo Section
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Perfect
On the day I almost died, I remember waking from an afternoon nap to the full glory of the sun hanging over the lake like the tip of a sparkler. The master bedroom in my place in Chicago had floor-to-ceiling windows and a wraparound deck with a patio that connected to the living room. You could turn left and see the skyscrapers. Turn to the right and there was Lake Michigan, looking as limitless as an ocean. It was one of three modern-inspired units on the 40th floor of the Park Hyatt on Michigan Avenue. I had been there just about a year, and every time I opened the front door, I would step into the foyer in shock at how my life had drastically changed. It was spectacular.
In places like Los Angeles or Miami, you take days like June 19, 2003, for granted. But in Chicago, where the winters are so cold, dark, and long that the locals call it Chiberia, days like these are treated like precious jewels. While standing in front of the window in my bedroom, I took a deep breath and gazed upon my new city of dreams. I reached out and pressed my hand against the window to feel the warmth of the light and thought to myself, Today is going to be an amazing day.
One of my dreams growing up was to have multiple homes. It just seemed like one of those things that symbolized real success. So during my rookie year with the Chicago Bulls, I rented a home in Deerfield near the team’s practice facility, in addition to this sleek 2,300-square-foot luxury condo in the heart of downtown Chicago. Since my parents wouldn’t let me touch my actual NBA salary, both places were covered by the money I had already made from endorsement deals. Looking back, this was one of the times when their control over me turned out to be for the best.
So many people look at what happened to me later that afternoon through the prism of a ruined NBA career, but that’s not how I think about it today, or at least that’s not the only way I think about it. The way I see it, it’s a reminder of how things can change in a flash. There’s a saying that a sense of immortality is a curse carried only by the young, but I disagree. We all do it—take the future for granted. That’s just human nature. Then one day you wake up in your perfect apartment on a perfect day, with your perfect job, leave for a meeting, and never see that perfect apartment again.
The day before, I had flown down to Durham, North Carolina, to talk to some students at a basketball camp at my alma mater, Duke. Afterwards, I played pickup ball with some of the Duke players while Chris Collins, who was still an assistant under Coach Mike Krzyzewski at the time, watched. This was my first time playing against J.J. Redick, who was one of the greatest players ever to play at Duke. J.J. and I were on separate teams in a pickup game, and I loved how as a freshman his ego was almost as big as mine. Almost. He was fiery and competitive and reminded me very much of myself. I picked one of my best friends, Graham, who had just finished a solid career at Appalachian State, to be on my team—but J.J. insisted on enforcing the unspoken rule that only Duke players have the right to play in the first game. J.J. was already on his way to taking Christian Laettner’s throne as the most disliked Duke player. I remember looking at him and saying, “Are you fucking kidding me? I picked Graham and he is going to play on my team. That’s final.” What had already slipped my mind, not even a year removed from playing college ball, was that at Duke, rules are rules. It was not only embarrassing to get overruled by a freshman leading the way, but even more so that it happened to be in front of 600 campers. Whether right or wrong, I felt disrespected on a court where I had accomplished way more than anyone there at the time. So I walked Graham over to the sideline and told him, “Enjoy the show.” I was angry, and I knew what was coming.
The game went to eleven baskets and I scored nine, all on J.J.
I had just finished my rookie season as a pro, and it was the most up-and-down year I’d ever had—on and off the court. Our journey wrapped in April, since we didn’t make the postseason—we were 24 games out of playoff contention—and I immediately headed to the gym to work my ass off for the following season. I was determined to come back with a vengeance.
I hadn’t realized how much I had improved, but Chris Collins saw it right away. “Man, you’ve been working on your game, huh? Your game has gone to another level,” he said. “You are going to dominate the league next year if you keep playing like that.”
The next morning, I got up to take a crack-of-dawn flight home to Chicago. When I got to my condo downtown, I threw my bags down, got undressed, and fell right into bed to take the first of two power naps that day. I wouldn’t have bothered setting my alarm if I hadn’t already committed to a workout at the Berto Center as well as a meeting with my marketing agent, Kevin Bradbury. Kevin had set up a brainstorming session for us with a tech guy about my new website later that afternoon. When the alarm went off, I forced myself out of bed. I always found an auxiliary source of energy when it came to basketball. With Coach Collins’s comment that I was going to dominate the league ringing in my ears, I was excited to head straight to the gym.
The Berto Center was the Bulls’ practice facility then. The place was a pantheon for many of the legendary memories from the Jordan era. There, for about five years, the most famous player in the world wielded his trade in the hangar-like complex, exchanging elbows and trash talk with the likes of Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr, and Dennis Rodman. The walls were covered with all kinds of championship banners—divisional, conference, world—which served as a reminder of how far off the deep end the franchise had plummeted.
The workout that morning was with some of my teammates. As usual, Jamal Crawford and I went at it. Only this time, something felt different . . . in a good way. My legs weren’t heavy like they’d been the entire year—the adjustment from playing 40 games in a college season to 82 as a pro had been gruesome. I left the workout thinking this was going to be my year. It was all starting to click.
I was running on fumes as I made the hour-long trip back to my place downtown. I finally got home, tossed the keys to the truck on the counter, stripped down, and crashed.
AS I WOKE up to that beaut
iful summer afternoon, I was even more drained than before. Within the past 24 hours, I’d been in Durham playing ball, partied that night into the wee hours of the morning, caught the first flight back to O’Hare, a nap, a training session, another nap—and here we are.
As much as I wanted to bail on the meeting Kevin had set up, my dad had raised me to keep my appointments; so I dragged myself out of bed, again, and started to get ready.
My closet looked like an Adidas Foot Locker commercial. I had a multi-million-dollar deal with them, which entitled me to an unlimited allotment of apparel each year. I felt like the man, getting paid to wear their stuff, and I laugh about it today when I see what guys like Derrick Rose and James Harden get paid for endorsements. The crazy thing is that I never got the chance to wear most of the clothes because of what would take place later that day.
I threw on one of my countless white Adidas T-shirts, my favorite blue jeans, and a pair of Adidas classic shell-toe sneakers. I was running behind. My dad wouldn’t approve.
I had a deal with Chevrolet at the time. They gave me a Tahoe and a Corvette as part of the agreement. The SUV was perfect for the Chicago winters, but it wasn’t winter. It was summer. Finally. And a perfect day at that. The Corvette always made me feel like a 55-year-old man trying to recapture his youth, so I decided to take my motorcycle out instead. It was a black Yamaha R6 with red accents.
There’s a lot to adjust to when you first come into pro ball. No one is on you to make sure you get to classes—there are no classes. There isn’t anyone monitoring you to see if you’re putting in your time at the gym or in the weight room. Your time is your own to manage. I thought I was ready for it, but like any other naive 21-year-old, I had no clue.
At Duke, we were like a family. Coach K insisted on it, but the older players were the ones who really watched over us when we were underclassmen. We didn’t want to let those guys down. We pulled together, looked out for one another, and stuck to the script. There was only one agenda, and it was a collective one: Do things the right way, and win.
Things couldn’t have been more different that year with the Bulls. When the average age of your team is 23, a new guy coming in didn’t represent help. It meant somebody’s job was in jeopardy. We were in competition—for minutes, for shots, for stats, all of which would translate into money down the line. I wasn’t used to looking around the locker room and wondering if there was anybody I could trust. And I sure as hell wasn’t used to losing. In my first five weeks in the pros, we lost as many games as I had during my three years at Duke. It was mind-boggling to see guys play like they didn’t care, and it really took its toll.
Basketball had been my one outlet, the place where I could take whatever frustration, anger, or sadness I was feeling and transfer it into the physical and mental rush of competition. It was on the court that I had always found solace, and now, for the first time in my life, I was turned off from the game. And I had no backup plan when the one thing I relied on to blow off steam became the cause of all my problems.
But I did have money. And time. And soon, I had a motorcycle.
I can’t remember exactly how my obsession with bikes began. I had seen photos of Michael Jordan riding all kinds of exotic motorcycles as a player and remember thinking how badass he looked. I wanted to look a certain part, I wanted to be my own man, and I wanted to rebel. For some inane reason, I was convinced that riding a bike would check all those boxes.
I would be lying if I said no one warned me about motorcycles. They did. But the more everyone told me I shouldn’t be riding a bike, the more I wanted to ride. We all know how that works.
I had worked my ass off to become an NCAA champion, a two-time national player of the year, and the second pick of the draft, and yet I had this team of people around me always telling me what I should or shouldn’t be doing. Especially my parents, who seemed to have an opinion about every last decision that involved me. I wanted—no, I needed—to make my own decisions, to have some control over my own life. The Yamaha R6 symbolized that for me.
But I was that prototypical young hotshot who thought he had all the answers. For starters, I had never taken a single riding class. Motorcycle license? What for? Money and arrogance were all I needed. I walked into the first and only bike shop I’d ever been in, saw the R6, and bought it on the spot. And that was that.
If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle, you know the instant adrenaline rush it provides. The wind is blowing in your face, and you can feel each and every mile per hour you’re going. I never appreciated how moving even 40 miles an hour felt until I got a motorcycle. You can hear all of the street fragments kicking up as you drive over them, your legs straddling the engine as if you’re attached to a human-size rocket. It gave me a heightened sense of awareness and power, reminiscent of the rush I got on the court. The good and bad news ended up being that I wasn’t afraid of it at all.
I started hanging around bike shops, buying gear. Eventually I met a group of guys who liked riding at high speeds late at night, when there were fewer cars on the road. I should’ve been nervous, but I wasn’t. In the spring of 2003, I would meet up with this crew and ride down Lake Shore Drive, or sometimes take I–90 over to Indiana, passing cars at 130 miles per hour. I know it sounds crazy, but I’d never felt so powerful in my life.
I was looking for what I’d lost when I left college: camaraderie. So we rode. Guys on my left would be standing vertical on the seats of their bikes while they were going 30 miles per hour. Other guys on my right were laid out like flying angels while revving their engines to decibel levels that were out of this world. I had never seen anything like it before. I tried a trick or two, but it was mostly just the speed that I was after.
It was the most eclectic bunch of guys I’ve ever been with. Lawyers, teachers, mechanics, black, white, Latino, Native American, some covered in tattoos, others squeaky clean. It was this incredible cross section of humanity, but we all had one thing in common: we loved to ride. And that’s what we talked about—not our day jobs, personal lives, or anything else except the rides we’d taken or the ones we planned to take.
I KEPT RIDING with them until one night, one guy I barely knew lost control of his bike and crashed. He was ahead of me on the right of the “peek” going about 90 miles an hour. His front wheel started to wobble and he lost control. It was the scariest thing I had ever seen. The bike flipped, and his body flew for what seemed like forever. When he finally landed, he hit the highway like a rock being skipped across a pond. All of us stopped immediately to barricade the accident area from other vehicles. As I approached him, there was blood everywhere and his body looked torn apart. We all surrounded him and waited for the ambulance to arrive. He ended up only suffering a few broken bones, but it was enough to scare me from ever riding at those speeds again, though not enough to give it up entirely. I couldn’t; it meant too much to me.
THE MEETING WITH Kevin and the tech guy was only a couple of miles away, so I instinctively grabbed the keys to the bike. I didn’t bother grabbing my helmet, since it was a gorgeous day out and I wanted to feel the sun on my face. To be honest, I hardly ever wore a helmet—it wasn’t against the law in the state of Illinois—but I did put on a jacket, which I left open so it could flap in the wind. The garage in the building was actually aboveground, and I loved pulling out of my spot and cruising down the spiral entryway to ground level. I would always rev the engine a few times while in neutral on the way down. There was something I loved about hearing the sound of the exhaust echoing off the walls. It was obnoxiously loud and would always grab people’s attention. Apparently being the new face of the city’s NBA franchise wasn’t enough for me.
The meeting went great. I was really happy with the progress we were making with the website and was excited to see the finished product. I gave Kevin a hug and told him how much I appreciated him. He was more than my agent; he was a big brother to me. We’d first met when I was 17 years old and he was working for a marketing firm th
at handled the McDonald’s All American Game and surrounding events. He ended up chaperoning me in New York City for a Rosie O’Donnell Show appearance. He was one of the few people I trusted enough to talk to about all the issues with our team during that time. Kevin would always remind me to keep my head up and stay encouraged, and that all my hard work was going to pay off.
At the end of our meeting, Kevin asked me what else I had planned for the day, and I told him, “I have no clue. Just headed home and maybe another workout.” We walked out the front door of the home where the meeting had taken place and I climbed on my bike as we continued talking about this and that.
“You shouldn’t be riding that thing,” he said.
“Kevin, I shouldn’t be doing a lot of things,” I said.
A few minutes later, I was bleeding to death.
THERE WEREN’T A lot of people around when I was driving away, but I revved my engine anyway. Kevin was still standing in the doorway watching, and I wanted to make sure that he heard my new exhaust. As I coasted down the street, I revved the bike twice—the second time louder than the first. Then, in the middle of my third rev, I heard a click-click sound and the bike popped up and shot off. My first thought was that the gears had slipped and I had to control the situation. If I had just let go of the motorcycle, chances are I would’ve walked away with some bumps and bruises. Maybe a broken arm. But I held on.
My hands were already on the handlebars; the front tire was in the air, and I was almost trying to wrestle it to the ground. My grip tightened as I tried to hold on, and maybe that even revved the throttle a little more. I must’ve accelerated by 20 miles an hour in a split second as the back wheel aggressively spun out of control, abruptly redirecting me to the right while forcing me to lean backwards, which was the last thing I wanted to do. I was terrified that I was going to slip off the back and have the bike fall directly on top of me. Looking back, that would’ve been a way better scenario. But I leaned forward, looking down, trying to use all my weight to get the front wheel back down . . .