NBA Finals a reminder of Grant Williams’ missed opportunity originally appeared in NBC Sports Boston
Grant Williams is in the news this week. On Monday, he will be the keynote speaker at the Middle Tennessee High School Sports Awards honoring the Volunteer State’s best student-athletes. It’s a milestone for the civic-minded Williams, whose mother is a NASA engineer.
It should also be said that Grant Williams hasn’t been in the news this week. When the Mavericks and Celtics begin Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday nightWilliams will not wear either uniform, although he recently wore both.
In between the big and small stories of this final – The return of Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic vs. Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porzingis vs. his old team – there’s also this: it’s a battle of two clubs that decided they would be better off without Williams. One of them will win everything.
The Celtics made that choice last summer when they revamped their roster and let Williams leave in restricted free agency through a sign-and-trade system.
The contract year that many of us were hoping for never materialized, so it wasn’t a difficult decision. Williams’ last big moment in a Celtics uniform was decidedly dubious, as he got jaw dropped by Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler before the latter took over Game 2 of the conference finals to give Miami a commanding lead.
The Mavericks were not deterred. They signed the burly forward to a four-year, $54 million contract, envisioning him as a strong, experienced addition to their frontcourt alongside MVP candidate Luka Doncic.
Did not work. Williams reportedly appeared out of shape, but with his mouth intact, which won’t surprise anyone who’s seen him blab throughout his Celtics career. What was quite endearing here – former teammate Jayson Tatum clearly loved him – proved to be irritating in Dallas and the Mavericks sent him to his hometown Hornets to P.J. Washington as part of a mid-season roster rebuild. season that began their run to the finals.
This leaves Williams in an awkward position. In addition to not playing, if he wants a ring, he will need to support the team that dropped him in February. Given his longer and happier ties to the Celtics, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was rooting for former teammates like Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Al Horford, but he can only win one Mavericks ring.
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Let the record show that Williams has authored some legitimately great moments in a Celtics uniform, none greater than his seven 3-pointers in Game 7 to eliminate the Bucks on their way to the 2022 NBA Finals. The Celtics lost to the Warriors, but it seemed possible that Williams could carve out a Draymond Green-lite role in Boston as an instigator and burly defender.
Instead, Williams fell out of coach Joe Mazzulla’s rotation with inconsistent efforts. He was eliminated for the first time last March and earned five DNPs in the playoffs. When the season ended, he suspected his days in Boston were numbered, which the pre-draft trade of former Mavs big man Kristaps Porzingis effectively confirmed.
So next week he will return to Tennessee, where he was a first-team All-American in college, and give back to his community. Williams was many things in Boston – affable, loquacious, occasionally frustrating – but he was never a champion.
His former teammates – on both sides – will try to finish the job without him.
