Jason Williams reflects on playing days ... and life after

Jason Williams, the former Duke basketball star and NBA No. 2 draft choice, talks about his attempted comebacks from injuries, including a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 2003; coming to terms with the end of his playing career; the pain of being second-guessed; the NBA struggles of J.J. Redick; and why he'll go by either "Jason" or "Jay". We previously posted the ESPN analyst's thoughts on the current versions of N.C. State, Duke, North Carolina and Davidson's Stephen Curry.

N&O: Do you still have hopes of coming back and playing?

Williams: You know, I get offers all the time from random people, and I still play. But I don’t even really worry about it. I’m kind of happy to say that I’ve moved on past that, and I’m just focusing on TV now. My body does feel great, though. I still have the ability to play, but I just choose not to play.

N&O: When was your most recent attempt to come back?

Williams: It was about a year-and-a-half ago, when I was with New Jersey. I went through training camp with them, and I did really well. I was able to endure through two-a-days for about two and a half weeks and spent the whole summer in New Jersey working out with the coaching staff every day. Lawrence Frank [head coach of the Nets], we had a sit-down conversation. He just said, “Jason, listen, we only have 15 guaranteed roster spots. I would take you, but I just think you need to go overseas and get reps and play.”

It was a humbling time for me, because I had worked so hard to get back, and I felt like I performed really well. But I was like, “All right, I’m willing to do the steps I have to do in order to get back to where I want to be.” And I took about two or three days off, and was getting some offers from some teams overseas, and was working out by myself in New York, and dislocated my ankle. I went up for a layup. I slipped. I dislocated my right ankle. And you know, it was like, man, I was hurt again. I had to go down to Duke, and I spent about three and a half, four months down there, just going through rehab and doing all of that stuff that I’d been doing every other day before for the past two years. Again.

Then my agent was like, “Why don’t we go play in the NBDL [National Basketball Development League],” and I went there, and I played for the Austin [Texas] Toros. The first game, I almost had a triple-double. I was trying to find myself, and I was still kind of fighting through this ankle injury, which was still hurting me very badly. Then I watched Dennis Johnson pass away, and it was just like ... I don’t know, it was like I was being sent signs that maybe it was time to try something different.

N&O: What was your relationship with Dennis Johnson [former Boston Celtics star]?

Williams: Well, he was my coach for the Austin Toros, and we had spent a lot of time, because he had known about my story. ... He was like, “Jason, I promise I will get you back in the NBA,” and I really put all my trust in him, and working out with him on a daily basis in Austin. Because I don’t care what anybody tells you, the NBDL, it’s not glitz and glamour. I mean, you’re only getting paid $24,000 a year. You’re really roughing it. You’re taking 14-, 15-hour bus rides to games. You’re washing your own uniform. ... But DJ was great to play for. He was an unbelievable person and coach and competitor. When he passed, I don’t know if it was a sign, or something in me just kind of lost it a little bit for the game.

N&O: Physically, do you think you could come back?

Williams: I think so. I’m still in really good shape now, working out every day, taking boxing courses, still doing running and shooting when I can. If I really hunkered down, I could probably get back and play a little bit more. Do I want to go through taking the ibuprofen every day for pain? No. Do I want to go through two or three hours spent with [physical] therapy every day? No. Do I want to wake up [to] the aches and pains when I walk my dog? No. I’m 27 now. Do I want to be 34 and have to think about going through a knee replacement? No.

N&O: Do you feel any bitterness about what happened to you or toward the NBA?

Williams: No, there’s no bitterness in me at all. It’s only positive thoughts. At first, oh yeah. At first, there was a lot of frustration and a lot of anger, not just about the NBA and what I had to encounter, but just about myself for making decisions that I did.

You know, it’s funny. Because of what I do, I’m on the Internet all the time, and you’re reading about players, and every once in a while, you just type your own name in and you hear what people have to say. At first, hearing people’s comments on my life was really hard and difficult, because everybody has an opinion, and you read a blog and you hear people call me “stupid” and you hear people call me “an idiot” for making that dumb decision, I could lose so much money. But none of those people understood what I went through on a daily basis. You know, everybody makes mistakes, and the one thing that I was taught, and I always heard my coach say it, is that the true character of who you are comes out on how you handle those mistakes, and I was able to learn from my mistake and become a better person from it. A lot of people would say: Would I change anything about my life? No, because that made me the person I am today, and I’m happy with the person I am today.

N&O: What’s the difference between seeing [the game] when you’re actually handling the ball on the court and seeing it from the point of view of a TV analyst?

Williams: (laughs) Uh, it’s a lot easier, I can tell you that. It’s a lot easier to critique somebody on what they should do instead of being involved in the game. But you know, when I got hurt, the one thing that my injury did do is it slowed me down, and I got a lot of time to spend with Coach and a lot of coaches and watch tape. Coach K and I would just sit there and watch tape about some of the guys and just being around the coaching staff and understanding the real game of basketball, because when you’re young, you just play. You’re so into it emotionally and physically that sometimes you don’t take time to think about what’s the right move to do. As I got older, the game really slowed down for me. It’s what a lot of kids will see once they do get older. You’re used to seeing the game at 90 mph, and all of a sudden, once you get older, the game slows down to 40. ... Now, from my calling perspective on the sideline, I have an understanding of that, and it’s not that difficult to see what a player should do at the right time. Now, am I right on all my observations? Probably not all the time. But I’m just telling what I would do if I were a player in that situation.

N&O: What’s your take on J.J. Redick’s situation?

Williams: I love J.J. J.J. and I spend a lot of time together during the summer, and I think J.J. is one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen. You’ve got to look at that rotation they had in Orlando ... they had a lot of guys at that 2-guard spot.

The one thing I do know about the NBA is that, I remember we were playing against Sacramento, and I was the second pick in the draft. I was guarding Jason Williams, and he scored on me one possession, right? And the next nine plays were the same play, an “iso” [isolation] at the top of the key for Jason Williams continuously against me. Now this is a very humbling thing, because I came from Duke, where we played defense, something we prided ourselves on, and I couldn’t stop Jason Williams in a one-on-one situation. And it was such an eye-opening [experience] for me, because I felt like I was on an island by myself. It was my job to stop this one guy, and I think that’s where you see J.J. struggling a little bit, is defensively.

That’s where Orlando has their biggest challenge: Can J.J. really guard somebody? Does he have the ability and foot speed to stay with a 2-guard, because he’s 6-4, but he’s going against guys who are 6-5, 6-6, 6-7 at the 2-guard spot now. You usually have point guards who are 6-4, 6-5, 6-6, so does he have the foot speed and defensive tenacity to stay with some of these guys?

N&O: Should J.J. go overseas?

Williams: I don’t know. Overseas, I mean, you look at [Josh] Childress and some of these other guys taking some big money overseas. How can you knock ’em for it, I mean, getting $24 million tax-free? You get $24 million over here, you’re only getting, really, $13 million to $14 million. Over there, you’re getting $24 million, plus you’re getting people to take care of your house, your car, your living expenses, so you’re actually coming out on top at the end of the day about $7 million or $8 million more than you would if you were over here. I think you’re going to see a trend of a lot more players going overseas. I think you’re even going to see a lot more from high school, a Lance Stephenson or a Renaldo Sidney, two kids that are top recruits that both have NBA-style games and NBA-type bodies. I think you’ll see them go over and test the waters overseas first, start earning some cash beforehand.

N&O: Do you have any interest in coaching?

Williams: I don’t know about coaching. I talk to Johnny Dawkins all the time, and Johnny had to go through what he went through as far as recruiting, obviously, when he first started. But I always told Johnny, I was like, “Johnny, if I had your job as associate head coach, I would do that in a heartbeat.” Because Johnny would work all the guys out and stay home and get a chance to really coach, and after being outside of the game for a little bit and spending some time with Coach, and spending some time with Chris Collins and Steve Wojciechowski, and seeing how they’re on the road recruiting, it’s challenging. It’s really challenging trying to make a 15-, 16-year-old kid understand the opportunity that they have in front of them. And I think it’s challenging for the fact that a lot of these kids now, especially the highly talented kids, have so many people around them that are able to influence their decision, and not a lot of these people are positive people, but a lot of these people are hanging on based upon what the kid could be. And as a coach, you have to break all those barriers. You have to get through the AAU coach, get through the friend, talk to the family and hope the family understands, and talk to the kid and hope the kid gets it.

N&O: Now, do you prefer to go by “Jason”?

Williams: Interesting question, considering my mother right here gave me the name Jason, yelled at me for ... do you know the story behind all of this?

N&O: Not really. I know there was one point that, as a newspaper editor, I understood that we were supposed to refer to you as “Jay.”

Williams: (laughs) It was really funny. Before I was drafted, the chief marketing officer for the agency that I was working with, we were speaking about, you know, should I change my name to “Jay,” because at that time you had the Jason Williams who had played for Sacramento, who had some issues that people were confusing him and I, and then you also had the Jayson Williams who had shot a chauffeur.

And CBS had made a mistake around that time. They were doing something on television about Jayson Williams, who had shot his chauffeur, and they had a picture of me. So it was like this whole big frenzy, and I was walking down the streets of New York, and people were asking me if I shot my chauffeur. And I was like, “Please, I can’t even afford to get a car yet. I’m just getting out of school. I wish I had a chauffeur.” (laughs) I’m still trying to get out of debt for all the bills we paid to get me through school.

So, my agent was like, “We should think about changing your name to Jay,” and my mother was very much opposed to it, because she gave me the name Jason, and (imitating his mother) “I’ll be darned, Jason’s his name, it’s his birth name, and he’s gonna stay Jason.”

And some reporter overheard her speak about this subject, I wake up the next day, I look in The New York Times, and don’t you know that my name is changed to “Jay”. And from that point on, everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, called me “Jay”, and instead of explaining the whole story every single day, because it got very tiresome, I just went along with it. It just kind of happened. So, my mom still calls me “Jason”, but in the media, I probably go by “Jay”.

N&O: Does it matter to you one way or the other?

Williams: It does not.

N&O: Because I’ve seen some reports going back to calling you Jason.

Williams: I really don’t care. (laughs) I am so past caring. I’ve been past caring since 2002, when I got drafted.

N&O: So, you have a home here?

Williams: Yeah, I do. ... I bought house in Durham about four and a half years ago. I have a place in New Jersey as well, but I will always call Durham, North Carolina, home. It’s the one place I go back to. So many of my best friends are in Raleigh that went to school at N.C. State. I have a lot of good friends that went to school at Carolina. It’s like every time I go home, especially from the hustle-bustle of New Jersey and New York ... I have this barn that is across from me about 100 yards away from my house. Sitting outside with my dog and watching the cows go by, it’s just so relaxing to me. That will always be home.