by Jay Williams
At Duke, the constant emphasis was on the team. Halfway through the press conference, I saw that that was not the way things were going to be here: I was the No. 2 pick in the draft, so I was supposed to be the franchise’s savior.
The Bulls had been a disaster ever since Jordan left in 1998. Their combined .223 winning percentage since then averaged out to around 18 wins per season, and I was their fifth lottery pick in the past four years. Chicago fans were restless and wanted us to start winning yesterday; they’d gone through four dire seasons mostly under Tim Floyd and Bill Cartwright, who was entering his rookie season as a head coach. Cartwright had apparently earned his shot after serving five years as an assistant coach for the franchise. I guess their thinking was that his ties to the front half of the Bulls dynasty would help bring the team back to its winning ways. They also wanted someone who had played the center position to mentor our teenage lottery picks as they were going into their second season. Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler were both very gifted, but at opposite ends of the court: Tyson had the potential to become a defensive great, while Eddy possessed the offensive skill set to be an unstoppable force.
I knew right away that Jamal Crawford was the best player on the team. Cleveland had selected him with the eighth pick two years prior, and the Bulls made a wise choice in trading Chris Mihm for his rights on draft night. From day one, the Bulls’ coaching staff established that we would not play together. We would have to battle daily for the starting spot. This move created colossal discord right out of the gate. We were copacetic off the court, but wanted to kill each other on it. The media didn’t help matters by stirring the pot on a daily basis about who should play over the other. And why, you ask, wouldn’t they pair us up in the backcourt when Jamal was a 6’6” shooting guard and yours truly was a 6’2” point guard? Your guess is as good as mine.
A year filled with some ups and mostly downs really began when I got my first look at Jalen Rose, who’d been traded from Indiana to Chicago seven months earlier. Jalen walked into the locker room on the first day like the mayor—big smiles, loud talk, high fives all around—and I thought, This dude can’t be serious. It was like a door-to-door salesman going about his business while hating every last minute of it. Jalen was shipped out of Indiana unwillingly because he was at odds with his then head coach, Isiah Thomas. And this was after his general manager, Donnie Walsh, promised him he wouldn’t be traded. So I wasn’t buying the bullshit he was selling, but nevertheless I was thrilled to have my favorite member of the Fab Five on the team. I’d heard that veterans tend to play themselves into shape, but I had no idea what that meant until he got undressed.
It was just like that scene in The Great White Hype when Damon Wayans’s character, James Roper, takes off his robe at the heavyweight championship weigh-in with a massive gut after training on doughnuts and cigarettes. I didn’t hear a damn thing Jalen said after his shirt came off; his mouth was moving, but I just kept staring at his midsection like Damn, dude, are you serious? The funny thing is, he wasn’t even a little ashamed to be so out of shape. Instead, he cracked jokes about his conditioning.
We’d run up and down the court once or twice, and Jalen would score and then have to come out for a breather. He’d go back in again, score, and a minute later come out for another rest, hunched over on the sideline like he was about to have a heart attack. After catching his wind, he’d go back in and hit a couple more buckets. No one could stop him, gut and all. It was like watching the eighth wonder of the world. He didn’t care what anybody else thought, which was the polar opposite of my 21-year-old self. And that’s the beauty of who Jalen was, and still is, to this day.
It didn’t take long to realize that Jalen’s physical condition was the least of our team’s issues. The Bulls had won six championships running the complex triangle offense, and had hired Cartwright to teach it to us. We were lovingly referred to as the “Baby Bulls.” And here we were, one of the youngest rosters in the league, being instructed to learn the most convoluted offensive scheme in basketball.
The triangle is a read-and-react system that has an endless sequence of options, with each new pass keying the next set of choices. The only teams that had ever been successful with it were the Bulls with Michael Jordan and the Lakers with Kobe Bryant, two of the greatest players ever; the guards who thrived in the system alongside them were spot-up shooters like B.J. Armstrong, John Paxson, and Steve Kerr.
Our guards, however, weren’t perimeter players—we liked to run free, use a ton of ball screens in the open court, and play fast. Being a half-court team overthinking each and every pass was the last thing our team needed.
We were in the Boston Garden for my first professional basketball game. I scored 13 points and had seven assists and seven rebounds, but I missed all five of my free throws, including four in the last 90 seconds. Afterwards, Jalen told the media, “He has to step up and make them. In the NBA, we just call that choking.”
I would call that choking in college basketball, too.
He added, “You don’t take it easy on rookies, especially ones who miss free throws in the fourth quarter.”
I was definitely not used to teammates calling me out to the media, and couldn’t believe he’d go to those lengths after a win, and my first pro game no less. It was the last thing I needed as I was just beginning to cope with the adjustment from college ball to the NBA, not to mention an offensive scheme I was struggling to understand. I remember waking up the next morning and seeing the comments he made in one of the papers, thinking to myself, Fuck this dude. I didn’t speak to him in practice, or anywhere for that matter, until our next game, a day later, when we were forced to interact on the court.
It only took two games into my pro career to find out that my leash was much shorter than ever before. One or two mistakes on the court and I’d find myself out of the game. At Duke, I was encouraged to work through my screw-ups; in Chicago, any error landed me on the bench. I watched Jamal go through it, too. I played 33 minutes against the Celtics in my first game ever and played only 20 in the following game against the Hornets.
After winning our first two games, we lost 13 of the next 15. That was as many losses as I had had my entire three years at Duke. Twenty-one months of college basketball and I had just accumulated as many losses in just over four weeks in the NBA. If I were to find any solace during that stretch, it would have to be from my seventh game of the year.
We were home against Jason Kidd and the Nets. Jamal was scratched that night, back in his hometown of Seattle on personal leave after his grandmother had fallen ill. I find it funny that the one game I didn’t have to worry about being yanked off the floor for a mistake ended up being the best damn game of my career. Bill was “forced” to let me play through, and as a result I started to find my groove. The ball was in my hands more, I was involved more, and the next thing you know I’m making great passes and getting defensive rebounds. I’m playing like my old self again, and I’m doing it against one of the all-time greats. At 6’4”, 215 lbs, with a motor that never stopped, Jason Kidd was the most electrifying point guard I ever played against. The more he pushed, the more I pushed, and we both ended up with triple doubles that game. I was the first Bull to get a triple double since M.J. For one night, at least, I was the player everyone had hoped I would be. And . . . we won.
My stat line: 26 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists in 45 minutes of action.
In the locker room, Jalen handed me the game ball and said, “This is yours, man. You deserve it tonight.” Bill barely said anything to me, which I found to be bizarre, but I remember thinking, Whatever. Move on.
I dropped 20 points on Milwaukee in the following game with the extra playing time, but after Jamal returned, we ate into each other’s minutes once again.
In the middle of our first West Coast swing, we were playing the Lakers on a Friday night. I was mentally drained from getting our asses handed to us night in and night out, so I decided to take a taxi to the St
aples Center in the afternoon before the mandatory call time for the game that evening. I wanted to go in early and shoot hundreds and hundreds of jumpers for at least an hour—until it felt right.
As I walked onto the floor, I saw one other player, already in a deep sweat, going through his moves at game speed. I just watched him for a minute before I snapped myself out of it and got to work. After a little over an hour, I was spent. And I still heard the ball bouncing at the other end. He was still at it. I sat down in the first seat I could find, just watching this guy in disbelief. I thought to myself, There’s no way his legs are going to be fresh for tonight.
Twenty-one points, ten rebounds, seven assists, and five steals later, Kobe Bryant proved me wrong.
ON A BAD team, players are always checking their statistics. And the selfishness that follows from that can affect everything that happens on the court. We were all guilty of trying to sabotage one another. After it happened a bunch of times to me, I’d had enough, and decided to take part in the charade. I wasn’t going to be the only one to have his stats take a hit. So if I had the ball with four seconds or less to shoot, I’d defer to someone else, forcing them to heave up a contested, low-percentage shot instead of it falling on my shoulders. If that teammate wound up with the ball in his hands with no time left on the shot clock, then he’d be charged with a turnover. Neither scenario looked good on the stat sheet, and I got away clean. It was a good old-fashioned game of “hot potato.”
And I developed a masterful countermove for when a teammate tried to sabotage me: I’d just let the pass go out of bounds, transferring the turnover back to the passer.
Coldhearted? Sure. But it’s a coldhearted business.
ON THE DAY after New Year’s, the Greatest of All Time had returned to the United Center for just the second time since leaving the Bulls in ’98. Michael Jordan was about six weeks away from turning 40 and he was back in uniform. Things weren’t going much better for the Wizards that season, however, as they had already accumulated 17 losses in just 31 games. The announcement of his name during the team introductions received a standing ovation from the Chicago home crowd for what must’ve been at least five minutes. It was as if he’d reawakened his audience from the glory years.
It was exhilarating to have the opportunity for our playing careers to overlap. I was determined to shut him down that night. I’d convinced myself that I needed to win our crowd back, and I used that as motivation to get as hyped up as possible. Even though it was Jalen who had the defensive responsibility of checking him, I ended up guarding him a few times on switches. One possession, while he was backing me down on the left wing, as I jammed my right elbow into his hip, trying to steer him toward the baseline, I started jawing at him.
“He ain’t doing shit,” I said. “He ain’t scoring on me.”
Even though I was a rookie, and just 6’2”, I felt like I was stronger than most guards in the league. I weighed 205 pounds and had really good position on Jordan that particular play.
Or so I thought.
He just looked at me as he kept backing me down and then blurted out, “Here it comes, over the right shoulder.”
All net.
As we inbounded the ball, I thought, That did not just happen. I’d like to believe Coach K would’ve given me a pass for allowing the previous play . . . and the next . . . and the one after that, too. This was the first time I’d ever met one of my childhood idols, and he was cussing me out and calling me every name in the book. I may have been one of his easiest “victims” as I played one of my worst games of the year. M.J. wasn’t himself either that night, so he decided to take it out on the next team just two days later, dropping 41 points with 12 rebounds on the Pacers.
The next month, I was in Atlanta for the All-Star Game. I wasn’t an All-Star, but I was a part of the festivities that weekend as I played in the Rookie Challenge. It’s since been renamed the Rising Stars Challenge, where the best of the rookie class play the best of the second-year players. One of my best friends since AAU days, Scooter Braun—or Scott, as I call him—was the biggest nightclub promoter in Atlanta. Scooter, a senior at Emory at the time, personified what it meant to be a hustler. Before the days of social media, he linked up every college in a 30-mile radius and provided them with access to the hottest nightspots in the area. Atlanta was the hotbed for hip-hop back then. It didn’t take Scott long to figure out how the music industry was wired there as he leveraged his nightlife connections to get a major leg up in the business. Many of the local heavy hitters were fascinated with how he was able to get white kids to flock to these historically black clubs.
So the night before the Rookie Challenge, Scott threw an epic party that I attended with my girl Noelle, my boy Dre, and of course . . . my “shadow,” Tim Marks. All of six months removed from college and here I am sitting in the back of a limousine, on my way to the party, when Noelle points out a massive billboard for an Adidas campaign with my image on it. One minute my face is on a schedule magnet put out by the Duke Athletic Department, and the next I’m on a billboard in Atlanta. I was now a star, and I hadn’t even done anything yet.
When we pulled up, there must’ve been hundreds of people in line trying to get into the club. It was chaos. Tim got out of the limo, rallied a few other huge security guys, and parted the crowd like the Red Sea. I felt like a real celebrity as we made our way inside. We entered the most star-studded VIP room I had ever been in. Within minutes, I’m in a drinking contest with Shaquille O’Neal while he’s seriously arguing with then heavyweight champion of the world Lennox Lewis about which one of them would win in a fight. Next thing I know, I’m in a deep conversation with Ashton Kutcher as his girlfriend Brittany Murphy and Noelle are sitting in the corner becoming fast friends.
Many shots later, Scooter and I found ourselves in the main club having a dance-off against Justin Timberlake, Ashton, and his boy from That 70’s Show, Danny Masterson. Noelle and her new best friend Brittany were watching us battle it out when all of a sudden someone shoved Brittany. Ashton sprung into action, and that was when all hell broke loose. The next thing I know, I’m being picked up three feet off the ground like a ragdoll by Tim. He carried me all the way to the other side of the club as if there was an assassination attempt on my life. Instead of rushing to my girl’s side to make sure she was okay, Tim made me his girl. Flat-out embarrassing.
The party may not have turned into the success Scooter was hoping for, but things worked out just fine for him. Today he owns two record labels, including one he formed with Usher, and he represents Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and other huge acts.
IT’S DIFFICULT TO describe the impact money can have when you’re so young and impressionable. Long gone were the days filled with anxiety about how we’d make ends meet. Bills in the mail were treated with the same concern as PennySavers and catalogs. I put my parents on the payroll and picked up three new homes within a matter of months. My biweekly paycheck was unfathomable.
$163,113.43.
I lived on Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile,” one of the best-known shopping destinations in the country. So naturally, I’d find myself tempted into making extravagant purchases. I bought my mom a Cartier diamond necklace for thirty-five grand and a $15,000 fur coat. I picked up a $5,000 Cartier watch for my dad. I treated myself to a pair of platinum dog tags for twenty, a platinum Rolex President Day-Date for forty, a couple of Andy Warhol prints for thirty.
My teammates and I gambled all the time. Shot for shot in shootarounds before games, hell, even rock-paper-scissors sometimes! On the flights, we’d drink beer and shoot craps in the aisle. There’d be cash all over the floor and in everyone’s grasp as they’d ready their bets, just hundreds of dead presidents staring back at us. Like so many others on the team and in the league, I’d pack my Louis Vuitton backpack full of cash for the trip, and if I forgot to load it up beforehand, I’d play on credit. Credit came in handy when games escalated quickly with the dice not rolling your way. One time w
e were on our way to Cleveland from Chicago, and before we even got over Indianapolis, I found myself fifty grand in the hole to Jamal Crawford. Duration of the flight? Forty-nine minutes.
I’d always look forward to my shooting games with Eddy Curry. The funny thing is, he’d be the one pushing them more than I did. Eddy used to bet me $1,000 per three-pointer, $5,000 per step-back jumper, $2,500 per baby jump hook. Bets were always random. And when we’d call it a day, whichever of us owed the other would fork it over in the locker room before heading to the showers.
As disorienting as this new life had become, I tried my best to remain grounded. Those closest to me lived in the real world—the same one I had come from just months earlier. The more money I made, the worse I felt about others going through their struggle. I began to realize how even the smallest of gestures could have a major impact on someone.
On long road trips, our athletic trainer, Fred Tedeschi, would give us an envelope with a per diem of a grand or more. I always kept it sealed for when I got back home. I’d hand the envelope to a bunch of kids who were always playing drums outside my building during the freezing winter months. Being a millionaire at 21 was a gift.
The season we were having, however, was a curse.
It wasn’t just the fact that we were losing; it was how—to Boston 91–69, to Dallas 114–87, to New Orleans 105–87. We lost to Sacramento by 13, to Utah by 20. Even when we did lose games in college, it was typically by no more than two or three points. I had to make a major adjustment going from a winning environment where accountability was everything to watching teammates take a game or two off because their finger hurt. We’d be on the bench down by 25 and players would lean back, call a ball boy over, and tell him to chase down the digits of random women in the stands.
Guys smoked weed constantly. And I did, too, from time to time, but never before games. During a time-out once, a teammate nudged me in a joking way, asking me if I smelled popcorn. I looked back at him, seeing his eyes all bloodshot and glossy, thinking to myself, Are you fucking high right now? The truth is, I knew he was high, because I’d smoked with him during our days off. I’d smoked weed with a bunch of guys that season, including Corie Blount, who six years later ended up serving time in prison for trafficking over 29 pounds of marijuana.