Life Is Not an Accident

by Jay Williams

  I needed anger. And Coach K almost always did a masterful job of pushing me to the edge without going too far.

  Almost.

  It’s no accident that Coach uses military metaphors when he talks about a team; attending West Point and coaching there had a huge influence on his life. He would often say to us, “Either you’re in the trenches with me and we’re going to fight, or if you’re not willing to fight, I want to make room for people who want to be in the hole with me.” I’ve watched him extend his arm to somebody and say, “Do you need help getting in the trenches with me? Let me pull you in. Here’s a branch, here’s your end—grab it.” And if you don’t grab it, “Okay, well, I’m going to put my hand out for somebody who wants to grab my hand and who wants to be in here with me.” I’ve seen people get lost in the mix because they didn’t want to buy in completely, or they didn’t find a way to express themselves to the point that he knew they were fighting with him instead of against him.

  But one time in my junior year, he went too far. Or so I thought.

  We were in Charlottesville facing Virginia late in the season. Our record was 25–2 going into that game. We were near the end, and despite my atrocious performance, K designed a play for me to drive the ball to the basket.

  My stat line at that point was: 4-for-13 from the field, 1-for-7 from downtown, 8 turnovers, 6 assists.

  We had been here before, where K would put his faith in me late in games regardless of how I was playing, but this wasn’t the right call in my book. Booz had 33 points and had missed only one shot, while Dunleavy really started to heat up at the end. So when the time came for me to run the play he designed, I ignored his call and deferred to someone else. We ended up losing the game by three points.

  I will never forget that walk back to the locker room. It was brutal enough to have fallen short, but knowing that the onus was square on my shoulders after deliberately disobeying our coach was intolerable.

  UVA had these tight, confined spaces for the visitors’ locker room. I was sitting next to Chris, who was even more distraught than I was. The loss clinched the ACC championship for Maryland, but I knew we could bounce back and still win the NCAAs.

  I put my arm around Chris, trying to take responsibility for my actions. Trying to be a leader.

  “It’s my fault,” I told him. “I messed up, not you. I was dog shit.”

  That was when I heard Coach K chime in.

  “Get your arm off of him. You’re not thinking about him. You’re not thinking about us. All you’re thinking about is the draft and leaving. You’re not committed to this team. I can’t believe you would do that. The play was designed for you and you didn’t care. You just did whatever you wanted to do.”

  I was having my very own Chris Carrawell moment. I’d defied our coach just like he had two seasons earlier. And to make matters worse, I handled the situation immaturely.

  “This is a bunch of shit!” I yelled as I got up from my seat. “You’re always on my case!” I then took a few steps in his direction while punching my fist into the palm of my other hand. “You’re always on me about leaving for the NBA. If I wanted to leave Duke, I would have left last year!”

  I caught myself then and there, frozen in my tracks, as I saw the look of disappointment in his eyes. Not knowing what else to say, I started to backpedal and make my way back to my seat. I could only imagine what everyone else was thinking after witnessing my outburst.

  “Never have I ever, ever had a player talk to me the way you just did. Ever. I’m so disappointed in you.”

  After that night, there was a little distance between Coach K and me. He didn’t say anything directly to me about the incident, but for the next couple of practices he put me on the blue team. Starters were on the white team. That was all he needed to say. Once again, I was angry, so I channeled that rage to punish whoever tried to guard me. It didn’t matter that I was on the blue team; we were winning every scrimmage. I had challenged Coach K and it was the wrong thing to do, but I benefited in the end. It was yet another valuable lesson in a long process of figuring out who I wanted to be.

  I’ll never forget what legendary UCLA coach John Wooden said to me on the day I received the John R. Wooden Award as collegiate player of the year in 2002. We were talking about what it takes for a player to succeed. He said that there are two types of players in this world. The first kind runs directly into a wall and says, as he lies on his back, “Woe is me; I can’t believe I ran into the wall.” The second player runs into the wall, falls down, gets back up, runs into the wall again, falls down, gets back up, and keeps doing that until he breaks through the wall. Then he says, “I knew that wall never defined me.” Coach K’s job was to guide us through to the other side of that wall. Every time we fell down, he was there to send us running right back into it.

  My last game in a Duke uniform was in Rupp Arena, in Lexington, Kentucky, against Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen. During the second half, we were up by 17 points, but we hit a dry spell offensively and Indiana crept all the way back. Before I knew what had happened, we were down four with 11.1 seconds left after A.J. Moye hit a pair of free throws. Coach K wanted us to push the ball upcourt and immediately call a time-out. Instead, our inexperienced freshman Daniel Ewing received the inbounds pass, pushed it up the right-hand side of the floor, and let fly with an ill-advised three-pointer. The ball hit the back of the rim and bounced directly to me near the top of the key. My first instinct was to shoot the ball, but, being a junior now, the game had slowed down for me immensely and I knew that a rushed shot wasn’t a good shot. I took two steps back to get behind the three-point line and fired, making sure I leaned into my defender as I elevated, hoping and praying to draw a foul. Sure enough, Dane Fife collided with me once I released the shot. As I’m lying on my back, the next two sounds I hear are the whistle and the net.

  Delirium.

  I was going to the line with a chance to tie the game with 4.2 seconds to go.

  This was the kind of moment I had always dreamed of. I thought of the countless times in the backyard of my house when I’d dribble the basketball, counting down out loud, “Five, four, three, and Williams drives and takes a shot . . . two, one . . . and the ball goes in and he wins the game for his team!” Just like hundreds of thousands of other kids have done.

  But here it was for real.

  As we went to the bench for the time-out, Coach K brought out his clipboard and said, “When Jason makes the free throw, we’re going directly into 41 defense.” He gave me no other option but to hit the shot. He didn’t give us any scenario for what we would do if I missed. As usual, he only focused on the positive.

  When we came out of the time-out, I felt like I was alone on the court. I couldn’t see or hear anyone. Just before I stepped to the line, Chris looked me in the eyes and said, “We’re going to win this game. Make the free throw and the rest will take care of itself.”

  I stepped up to the line and the referee passed me the ball. I proceeded with my usual routine, thinking of nothing else but the ball going through the net. I aligned my right toe with a nail that is always in the center of the free-throw line. I positioned my left foot so it was shoulder width from and six or seven inches behind my right foot. Like I’d done thousands of times before, I spun the ball, staring at the rim, and took three dribbles.

  One. Two. Three.

  As I was on my third dribble, I took a deep exhale and let it fly. The shot felt better than any other shot I’d taken in my life.

  Good . . . Wait, not good!

  The ball rattled in and popped out. Booz got the rebound off the right block and we had the win in our hands, but he brought the ball down, allowing Jared Jeffries to swipe at his put-back attempt.

  Game over. Season over. Duke career over.

  On a damn free throw.

  8

  Bulls

  I met with a bunch of different prospective agents once I declared for the 2002 NBA draft. Duke set up all the meetings. On
ly guys that were “Duke approved”—super power brokers like David Falk, Arn Tellem, Lon Babby, and others who’d represented all the greats over the years. I remember all these impressive presentations, and then when it was Falk’s turn, he came in with nothing except the story of how he made Michael Jordan into a global icon. That was enough for me. Sold!

  But David Williams wasn’t having it.

  “That’s great, David, but how are you going to help my son?”

  And Falk had a solid response, laying out his customized plan for my future, but it was a lost cause. The process was over before it even began—my parents already knew who they wanted for me. After we won it all my sophomore year and it looked likely that I’d leave, my mom and dad had sat with an agent named Bill Duffy from the Bay Area and taken a liking to him right off the bat.

  Duffy was in store for a very exciting draft. He already had Yao Ming, who was 21 years old at the time, and would soon land the Kansas Jayhawks’ star power forward Drew Gooden. And now he had me. The way things shook out, Duffy’s three new clients were taken in the top five of the draft.

  I’m not sure who decided to officially change my name from Jason to Jay, but I know it wasn’t me. A couple of weeks before the draft, we were in my hotel room in midtown Manhattan, preparing me for media hits later that day. Right before we were about to leave, we saw a news report about the pending trial of the Nets’ Jayson Williams in connection with the death of his limo driver. He ended up getting a five-year prison sentence, and I recall at the time thinking, Damn, he had it all and threw it away.

  Right then and there in the lobby of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, Duffy and his team suggested how it might be a good idea to distance myself from Jayson, while also distinguishing myself from Sacramento’s Jason “White Chocolate” Williams, who had made a big name for himself compiling one highlight reel after another throughout his career.

  My mom vehemently disagreed and started going on a rant about the importance of my given name. Frustrated by the back-and-forth debate, I finally chimed in.

  “You know what? I’m just excited to get drafted. You guys decide. We can figure it out later.”

  The next day I woke up, opened the newspaper, and learned that I had been rechristened. Right there in the sports section was an item about my changing my name from Jason to Jay. I still think it would’ve been nice to have known what my new name was before the rest of the country did. It marked a turning point after which my life no longer felt like my own.

  The evening of the draft was surreal. My mom, my dad, Noelle, my boy Graham, and Bill Duffy sat at a round table, just feet away from the stage in the Theater at Madison Square Garden. I wore a black tuxedo with a white shirt and pale silver tie. I thought I looked great. The pictures today tell a different story. I can’t help but shake my head when I look at them now. The jacket had shoulder pads that didn’t sit right at all; the shirt-tie combo made me look like a waiter; the pants were too baggy. As bad as mine was, Drew Gooden’s outfit was exponentially worse.

  Very late the night before, Duffy had popped by my hotel room to let me know Chicago was a lock at No. 2. Houston would be taking Yao. He added that Golden State was working the phones with Chicago to do a swap to move up one spot so they could take me. I was appreciative to have the information in real time, given that this was where the next chapter of my life would unfold. So while it was definitely anticlimactic when Commissioner David Stern called out my name as the second pick in the draft, it took nothing away from the moment.

  I got up, showed love to everyone at my table, and headed for the stage to begin my life as a pro. All I kept thinking about as I made my way up the stairs was Please don’t embarrass yourself on national TV by stumbling on the way up. I would have never heard the end of it.

  Concentrate. Don’t you dare trip, Williams.

  It was all business once I arrived to greet Commissioner Stern.

  “Congratulations, Jay,” he said, shaking my hand while patting me on the elbow as we posed for the camera.

  “Thank you, sir,” I replied.

  In the midst of all the flashes and cheering, I realized that all of the attention focused on me was now based on what people hoped I would do, not on what I had done. I, Jay—not Jason—Williams looked over at my parents and knew they were no longer just my caretakers but now also my business partners. I had an accountant, a lawyer, and financial advisers. I was a fledgling brand built on a product I hadn’t yet produced.

  My parents and the financial firm I started working with had organized my draft party for later that night at a club called Metronome, which was one of the hottest spots in the city at the time. They hired a part-time private security guard named Tim Marks to shadow my every move. Tim’s a light-skinned African American man who probably stood around 6’7” and must’ve weighed over 250 pounds, all muscle. I knew in advance that we’d hired him, but I had no idea what it was going to entail. It was like I was handcuffed to Tim the whole evening, at a private gathering with just our friends and family. It was ridiculous and made me so uneasy the whole night.

  With Noelle by my side—and Tim—I made the rounds to thank everyone for coming out. Things were going really well, and I was enjoying myself. That is, until I heard a familiar voice from behind me trying to get my attention.

  “Jason! Jason! . . . Hey, you!”

  I prayed it wasn’t who I thought it was, but then I heard her say, “Jason . . . it’s Jenny!”

  Jenny was my ex-girlfriend from my freshman year of college. We dated for a while until my wandering eyes got the better of me. Trying to be cool with the situation, I turned around to face her and quickly introduced her to Noelle. After a brief exchange, I asked how she had heard about the party.

  “Oh, your mom invited me,” she said with a proud smile on her face. Noelle had the opposite look on hers.

  I then continued to walk the room, holding Noelle’s hand, with her a pace behind me, when all of a sudden I felt someone tug on my shirt.

  “Hey, hon. I am so, so proud of you,” she said while kissing me on the cheek. It was Lauren. Lauren and I had been something of an on-again, off-again item during my sophomore year of high school. She was a gorgeous girl of Puerto Rican descent, and if possible, she looked even better that night than how I remembered her from when we were 16. Before I even got a chance to ask, she expressed how happy she was that my mom had invited her.

  My mom and I are extremely close, so it wasn’t unusual for her to meet the girls I dated, but inviting them to my draft party when she knew Noelle would be by my side? That was some cold-blooded shit. And it only got worse from there when, maybe five or ten minutes later, I noticed at least two other girls I had been involved with in the past. So not only did my mom use her own Rolodex to track down the women of my past, she even enlisted my friends to gather up any girl I had been with. My once anticipated draft party had turned into a night of putting out fires and cleaning up vomit. Noelle drank herself into a stupor, as anyone probably would’ve in her situation, and threw up all over the living room of our suite when we got back.

  I was still hot the next day when I ran into my mom in the lobby. “Why the hell would you do that?” It was almost a rhetorical question, as I knew the conversation would go nowhere. She replied how she “just” wanted everyone who loved me to be there, like she was doing it out of the goodness of her heart. Bullshit, I thought to myself as I rolled my eyes and walked away. The battle between Noelle and my mom had begun in earnest.

  The whole night wasn’t exactly a disaster. One amazing memory from the party that I’ll cherish forever was when I hung out with an unexpected guest. I didn’t know then that one day I would grow to revere this man. Just like my childhood friend Dre, my boy Graham was a UNC fanatic, and he recognized someone outside trying to get into the club. Graham was drunk, looking for a lady—any lady—when he took it upon himself to get the guy inside. After freeing myself from Noelle, who was a complete mess, and shaking Tim off me f
or the first and only time that night, I felt Graham drape his arm around my shoulder with fun-loving, drunken aggression. He was double-fisting two bottles of Dom Pérignon when he handed one over to me. We clinked bottles and both took a long swig. When my head tilted back down, I saw a third bottle on its way in for yet another celebratory clink, paired with a voice that was unmistakable.

  “You’re the only Dukie I mess with, man. Congrats!” It was Stuart Scott, the one voice that for me was synonymous with ESPN. I was in complete shock as the three of us chugged our bottles at the same time. I despised most media members back then. They were the enemy—always looking to kick you while you’re down. But Scott was different and I was thrilled to have him at my party, kicking back, drinking, and bobbing his head to the same music as us.

  Hungover as can be and still furious with my mom, my parents and I left that next morning for Chicago. My annoyance, though, began to morph into gratitude as the plane descended into O’Hare. We were all in first class and would have a limo driver waiting for us at baggage claim. It was one of the first times it really sank in that because of me, my parents were going to get everything they’d ever wanted. They were so happy and proud.

  We headed directly to the practice facility, where I saw my fellow draftees and new teammates Roger Mason and Lonny Baxter. All three of us hailed from the ACC and had competed against one another for years. Mason would go on to enjoy a ten-year NBA career and now serves as director of player relations for the NBA Players Association. Sad to say, things didn’t go as swimmingly for Lonny. He was one of the nicest guys around but fell on some hard times after flaming out as a pro. His lowest point—I hope—came on August 2006 when he was arrested just a few blocks from the White House after firing a .40-caliber Glock handgun into the air.

  So there we were, sitting on a stage in the Berto Center and being introduced to the media. I was in the city that Michael Jordan built, and the questions from the press reflected the hopes and expectations that a brilliant new Bulls era was about to begin.