Brittanni Smith is getting used to the nickname Boston’s fanbase bestowed upon her brother three years ago. Friends in Louisiana called Robert Williams III Boo-Butt. Some in the family went for Little Rob. Now, he answers to Timelord.
Smith once told her friend Michelle, Brad Wanamaker’s wife, to yell at Rob at halftime one game. BOOBUTT!
“My sister had to tell you that my name was Boo-Butt,” Williams quipped to Michelle later.
Hearing that in TD Garden usually signals it’s someone from home, Louisiana, the state Williams has tattooed on his arm and once struggled to leave. More recently, he added Ava, his daughter’s name. It joined his grandmother's, Williams' birth year and the wings he shares with his mother Tundra and sister.
Williams III will never remove himself too far from family. Home. He demanded tiny Oil City be read during his pre-game introductions instead of larger nearby Shreveport during his time at Texas A&M. Boston welcomes his growing family now, and will be home for the foreseeable future after Williams signed a four-year, $54-million extension with the Celtics last month. The team couldn’t find him in 2018 for his introductory press conference, which inspired Williams' new nickname. Now, they’re confident enough to guarantee nearly all his salary long-term. That required comfort in both directions.
Bri will roll with Timelord now that it’s used endearingly. She talked to him on FaceTime the day after Williams signed, watching him smile and laugh. He later cried harder than she ever saw him after telling his mother.
“Bri, we've never had this much money,” Williams said through tears. “I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this.”
As the final year of his rookie contract approaches, before that money arrives that’ll secure the futures of Ava and Williams’ son, who is due in late January, Williams is making goals. He started by downsizing this summer, moving away from the friends he brought from Louisiana in 2018, into a more private setting. One where he can focus on the season ahead, himself and family. Fatherhood helped inspire changes Williams would once wait for others to make for him.
Becoming Boston’s starting center after he only managed to open 13 games with the Celtics matters. First, he’ll need to play more games, period. He aims to get on the court more than 60 times after appearing in 52 games one year ago. Then, he wants to make the All-Defensive First Team.
Williams surprised his mentor and former AAU coach Rickey Evans when Evans called him Thursday, explaining the workout and physical therapy he went through that morning. Evans still checks in occasionally, though less often than when he needed to give Williams daily reminders of his tasks in high school. Evans began the process then of pulling Williams outside his comfort zone, when neighboring Texas seemed outside of Williams’ world.
“It took like an act of Congress to get him to stretch out and go out of town and play with the Houston Hoops,” Evans remembered. “Or to go to Texas A&M. It took some serious convincing.”
When Williams starred for North Caddo High School, where roughly 400 students attended, he dominated the northern Louisiana competition. He similarly flashed with Evans’ Louisiana Stars, now named RW3. The team traveled to Las Vegas, where then-Texas A&M assistant Amir Abdur-Rahim only thought to watch Williams when then-Louisiana Tech coach Jordan Mincy complimented him in passing. Abdur-Rahim didn’t know Williams then.
Four blocks, three dunks and two assists in a short span captured Abdur-Rahim’s attention enough to follow-up, but Williams needed to get on the Nike circuit. Houston Hoops wanted him. Williams wouldn’t hear it, even with his father working just south of Houston, so Evans made an ultimatum. He called off that Louisiana Stars season. The only way Williams could play AAU would be in Houston.
He went and Evans never felt Williams get comfortable there. Each trip required finding and convincing him to go. Evans would send Kadavion, his son, with Williams as company and a reminder of home.
“Well coach, I already done been out there twice, so the coaches know about me, so I don't got to go no more,” Evans remembered Williams telling him once. “I'm like no, now they know about you. You've got to stay out there.”
Houston didn’t provide the comfort Vivian, Louisiana did, a 12-minute drive north of Oil City, where North Caddo’s principal Dr. Marby Barker kept the door open for anything students needed. Williams, who wore braces through his arrival at A&M, wasn’t shy. He needed that home, a structure, one where he felt emboldened to bring concerns other students had to the principal’s office.
Barker remembered Williams presenting a plan to loosen up the dress code, so he and others could learn more comfortably in shorts and slides. She quickly declined, reminding him colleges might visit to see him. Other times, Williams told Barker he’d miss class traveling to Houston, so she could alert teachers to get his school work. The Celtics would later assign Alex Barlow as a similar liaison for Williams' early needs in Boston.
Williams grew up in a town with one stop light. Many houses had only the screen door in Oil City, and in Vivian someone always provided the reminders and oversight regarding what Williams needed to do and where he needed to be. Billy Kennedy and Texas A&M would nurture him too, securing Williams' early commitment. Once he arrived on campus, Williams loved it so much he would rarely leave.
Like many Celtics fans remember Williams’ missed flight and presser, Kennedy recalled how Williams struggled to lift weights when he arrived at College Station until the team paired him with strength guru Darby Rich. Another adjustment.
“He was just like a young baby when he came to A&M,” said former Aggies assistant Ulric Maligi, who now coaches at Texas. “He put on 27-28 pounds of muscle … he went from a bare-chested 18-year-old, to in three months we couldn't keep a shirt on him. He wanted to show everybody his muscles. I remember one post that he made on Instagram, he's in the mirror in the locker room and he's taking a picture of his new body, he's pretty proud of his new body.”
Williams came off the bench during his first 13 college games, initially refusing to start over junior Tonny Trocha-Morelos. B.J. Johnson, the longtime Rockets scout who died in 2020, told Maligi then Williams would be one-and-done, so “y'all can bring that guy off the bench if you want.” Even Trocha-Morelos, Maligi said, couldn’t believe it took so long once A&M replaced him among the starters with Williams. The freshman didn’t want to overstep. His coaches wanted Williams to do just that, get aggressive, play harder for longer and meet his potential.
The Celtics benefited from Williams staying another year, then falling in the draft over some combination of the constant discussion about his motor, him not attending the draft combine and health concerns. Still, Aggies coaches watched Williams grow from not knowing short and long step jump hooks during early walkthroughs to dominating practices unlike any player Kennedy had seen when he got inspired. One-word freshman answers evolved into passionate thank-yous for each teammate after A&M’s 2018 loss in the Sweet 16.
Leaving meant losing A&M’s structure. Williams signed Mike Silverman and Brandon Grier as his agents, before switching to Kevin Bradbury. Evans remembers Williams meeting with the Clippers, who loved him and owned the No. 12 and 13 overall picks. Evans and Williams would go straight from LA to New York for draft night, until Williams changed his mind. He called Bri and Tundra, who were already in New York, and told them to go home.
“Are you going to stay in college another year?” Bri asked.
“No,” Williams responded. “I just want to be at home, around home, around nothing but family and friends.”
Williams skipped the green room, threw a draft party at Buffalo Wild Wings and recorded with his phone as the Celtics called his name No. 27 overall. Evans had tried to convince him to attend and wear the hat. He once gave Williams a Black Chevy Tahoe that still sits in Williams' Louisiana driveway for junior prom. Evans could take it back if he saw Williams veering away from his responsibilities. On draft week, he couldn’t keep Williams away from Louisiana.
Evans believed teams noticed Williams’ absence. Williams worked out for a few, then didn’t see the need to do more. Then reporters waited on the phone as the Celtics tracked him down the next day, an incident Bri said stemmed from a time zone mistake. Kennedy, who now coaches at Wichita State, saw Williams get lost trying to handle too much himself between team and agent changes.
“When he had the freedom, and now all of a sudden he didn't have the support or all the help, that was new territory for him and I think it just took him some time in Boston,” Kennedy said. “I talked to Brad (Stevens) about him and I talked to Danny Ainge about him, and I told them when you get (Williams), if you give him some structure, that's going to be good for him, because he wants to please you. He wants to do the right thing.”
That’s happening more often three years later, enough to inspire the team’s long-term commitment to a Timelord transformed by fatherhood and three seasons. Al Horford, now back with the team, served as an early mentor and Jayson Tatum gave encouragement that drove Williams as much as his favorite Kodak Black songs. Williams set a Celtics playoff record with nine blocks against the Nets in May fighting through turf toe. Evans also sees him getting more proactive managing his health.
Williams still sneaks back to Louisiana, where he’s known to buy hamburgers for a whole school and eat them on the lawn with the kids. This summer, he bought two Trailways buses to bring kids from Oil City and Vivian to his camp in Shreveport, an upgrade over the old North Caddo gym fans could barely fit in. Williams hoped to represent greater possibility to an area where he was hardly alone in hesitating to leave. Bri remembered her own hesitancy to branch beyond Vivian.
Rob has done so successfully, but even after a breakout season and growth, former coaches don’t think Williams fully realizes how good he can be. Abdur-Rahim saw $100-million in Williams' future. Maligi agreed, and believes he can make a future all-star team.
“I think he's still learning how to fall in love with the game,” Maligi said. “I think he likes it a lot, and I haven't been around him in a while. Hopefully he's hit that point where he's addicted to it, and if he is, man, something special is going to happen.”
Will Ben Simmons go to training camp?
Oddsmakers posted skeptical offerings last week (20% chance) on whether Ben Simmons will attend training camp later this month, as the 76ers still appear far from from trading him. Vegas likely took the signal from Simmons reportedly telling Sixers brass he won't go to camp, first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer. It could be a card Simmons pulls as leverage to get out Philadelphia, since his long-term deal leaves him with little pull other than Klutch Sport's influence across the league and a fellow young agency-mate in Tyrese Maxey on the team that Klutch doesn't actually seem interested in pulling into this debacle. Still, you never see training camp holdouts in the NBA.
That's because the fines Philadelphia could levy would pile up quickly to $1.3-million, which Simmons' camp reportedly expects. It's unclear if the team would withhold the 25% of his salary due on Oct. 1, just after the start of training camp. That could be the card that's prevented any notable training camp holdout in the past in this league. Simmons could test it and succeed if he can stomach potentially losing over $8-million, though no team challenged star power that aggressively in recent years.
It's hard to imagine Philadelphia, whose leverage is lost by chaos in training camp, escalating this feud further. Simmons also doesn't want to push this to a point where he's simply traded anywhere. If opening day comes with Simmons still in Philadelphia and paid, he probably will play. Philadelphia needs to balance getting a perfect deal with having the best season possible by moving on promptly. Extending this saga risks alienating Joel Embiid at some point.
Celtics great enters the Hall
Paul Pierce joins his former championship teammate Kevin Garnett in the Hall-of-Fame today, entering alongside Chris Bosh, Chris Webber and Ben Wallace, among others. Bill Russell will enter as a coach, the first Black head coach in the NBA between 1966-1969, during which he won two championships as a player-coach before retiring and later coaching Seattle and Sacramento.
Pierce's entry follows scathing commentary in SI regarding his ESPN exit, decrying the network's reliance on LeBron James discussions and hypocrisy in criticism over the viral video that led to his ousting. He looked back on sliding in the 1998 NBA Draft to Boston, the nearly fatal stabbing he suffered in 2000, a near-trade to Dallas before he ultimately won a championship alongside KG and Ray Allen.
Speaking of Allen, Pierce broke some of the long-frigid ice between Allen and his former '08 teammates stemming from his controversial departure in 2012. Pierce posted a brief video with Allen the day before the ceremony, saying "we're always gonna be brothers." Allen, a 2018 Hall-of-Famer, is receiving a Human Spirit Award while Celtics voice Mike Gorman will get the Curt Gowdy Electronic Media Award this weekend.
Marc Gasol is leaving the NBA
Rumors that Marc Gasol considered leaving the NBA to return to his family in Spain came to fruition when the Lakers traded him back to the Grizzlies on Friday. Memphis will reportedly waive him and allow him to leave the league. The Lakers added a slowing Gasol in free agency last year after he struggled during a final season with the Raptors, but his floor stretching from the big position remained an effective weapon for an LA team that regularly courts size. Now, the Lakers will rely on Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan to fill center minutes alongside Anthony Davis.
Gasol was a 2019 champion in Toronto and 2013 Defensive Player of the Year with the Grizzlies. He won the World Cup with Spain in 2006 and 2019, earning silver medals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. His finale in the 2020 Olympics resulted in a 95-81 quarterfinal loss to the US where Ricky Rubio and company threatened for much of the game and finished tied at halftime. Pau Gasol, Marc's brother who last played for the Bucks in 2019, returned to Spain to play for FC Barcelona last season.