<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>A Free Pass for Sean Williams?Sean Williams is playing hard ball with teams who would like to consider drafting him, tell us two NBA executives with picks in the second half of the first round. Williams, who only played in five ACC-conference games this season after being kicked off Boston College in mid-January due to allegedly failing repeated drug tests, is yet to conduct even a single private workout at an NBA team?s facility. Instead, he has taken the very rare strategy (even for a top five pick, let alone a troubled potential second rounder) of isolating himself in his hometown of Houston and conducting public workouts with interested NBA teams, only alongside a 7-3 Romanian player. So far, Williams has held two such workouts, on the 11th and 18th of June, with another one planned in Los Angeles. Teams that are interested in conducting an interview to dig deeper into the repeated off the court issues that Williams has had throughout his career can only do so by flying into Houston. Only 5-6 team scouts were present at the workout conducted this past week in Houston, with the one real decision maker being the local Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Rockets. The Knicks, for example, sent a scout in Jeff Nix who they had already fired almost two weeks prior. The protocol here is usually for the scout attending to report back to the General Manger, and if the team likes what they hear, to recommend bringing him in for a workout. In a case like this, where Williams hasn?t been seen by almost any GM in person (very few if any scout the non-conference portion of a weak schedule like Boston College), it seems like teams are almost being begged not to select him in the first round. From what we?re told, Williams is now scheduled to secretly fly to two select NBA cities to meet the coaching staff and work out in front of their front office?New York and Charlotte. The Knicks (picking 23rd) will be joined by the New Jersey Nets (picking 17th) as has become custom this year, followed by the Bobcats (picking 22nd) later this week. At least one team drafting in the mid-first round believes that the Knicks have zeroed in on selecting either Williams or Daequan Cook at this point. Numerous NBA personnel we?ve spoken to believe that Williams? draft range is somewhere from 17-25. Making things even more difficult, though, is the fact that some teams in that range do not even have a simple physical-- including a drug test-- to allow their doctors to clear him to be picked. Teams regularly share physicals when it comes to players who did not participate in the NBA pre-draft camp, and Williams was scheduled to be examined by the doctors of the Houston Rockets, which hasn?t happened, and is now supposedly getting his physical taken in New York/New Jersey. Also missing from the picture are the psychological analyses/personality assessments that most teams conduct that could play a substantial role in the decision making process in this case in particular. Some in the league are wondering about the message that is being sent, when a player who has barely been seen by top-decision makers and has such a troubling track record is given a free pass on being scrutinized and drafted in the first round regardless, solely off his athletic ability. ?It?s an absolute joke,? one executive lamented to us privately this week. ?For the sake of our profession, and the NBA in general, Sean Williams should not go in the first round,? the executive said. ?What kind of message does that send? He has done absolutely nothing to show that he?s a pro, starting with the decisions he?s made, picking marijuana over the obligations he had to his team, and now not being bothered to travel to NBA cities and explain himself. It?s not even a matter of weed?it?s a responsibility issue. Life doesn?t get easier once you reach the NBA.? Williams? agent Charles Grantham did not return messages seeking comment about his client</div>http://draftexpress.com/viewarticle.php?a=2132
I definitely agree with Givoney. Williams is an idiot, he chose weed over basketball after multiple warnings/suspensions, he was kicked off the team, and he does not deserve to be taken in the first round. It's likely going to happen though, which is sad.
While he is really stupid in trading weed for basketball, you also have to look at both sides of it and say that other people in the NBA do probably smoke weed, but they're just not dumb enough to get caught.
Yeah but it still shows that Williams obviously isn't growing up at all and can get himself into more idiotic situations in the future and it shows that he is obviously lacking dedication to basketball and doesn't care to get better.
^^I realize that, and I completely agree, I'm just saying, sometimes you need to look at both sides of the ball before making judgements.
Skip Bayless thinks Sean Williams is the 3rd best player in the draft behind Oden and Durant and has him at #3 on his mock. Williams is a bonehead but he is a hell of an athlete and I have a funny feeling he has a promise in the 1st round and is just doing this to raise his stock a bit to see if he can get any higher.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (playaofthegame @ Jun 23 2007, 08:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Skip Bayless thinks Sean Williams is the 3rd best player in the draft behind Oden and Durant and has him at #3 on his mock. Williams is a bonehead but he is a hell of an athlete and I have a funny feeling he has a promise in the 1st round and is just doing this to raise his stock a bit to see if he can get any higher.</div>Seriously? You gotta give me the link to his mock.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (playaofthegame @ Jun 23 2007, 11:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Skip Bayless thinks Sean Williams is the 3rd best player in the draft behind Oden and Durant and has him at #3 on his mock. </div> You have got to be kidding me. I need a link, because I won't believe that unless I see it. Also, tell me how serious he was when he said it, because that's just absurd.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>HOUSTON -- Well before the workout is to begin on a typically clammy June day, Sean Williams strolls into Fox Gymnasium on the campus of Rice University, unrecognized by the scores of high schoolers participating in a basketball camp. Williams removes himself to a corner of the gym and does some stretching exercises.Then, the 6-foot- 10-inch Williams takes the floor as John Lucas takes the ball, set to begin the hour long workout. But before the first ball is thrown, or the first shot taken, or the first foot moved, Williams says to the gathered masses, "How y'all doing? My name is Sean Williams." He then shakes the hand of everyone in attendance with the exception of one person -- his mother, Audry. She gets a kiss.Is this the Sean Williams that, next year, will be playing in the NBA? The polite, accommodating, serious, committed, mature Sean Williams? That is what is going to happen, he promises. All the history is, well, history. The marijuana arrest? The stint in drug rehab? The suspensions (as in, more than one) from the Boston College team? The dismissal from the team last January? He knows he messed up, big time. How could he not?"I definitely let my coaches down, my teammates down, and the fans down," he says after the workout. "I thank Boston College for supporting me. They had my back the entire time. This is a new opportunity. I made some bad decisions. I've learned from those mistakes and become a better person from them."The $64,000 question among NBA overseers is, well, has he really learned? He didn't make just one bad decision. He made a series of them. He was suspended twice before coach Al Skinner booted him off the team for good Jan. 17, a day after he had scored 10 points, collected six rebounds, and blocked three shots in only 23 minutes of an 82-63 win over Miami. That will cost him both in reputation and dollars, for, as Williams acknowledges, "I knew I would drop [in the draft] after I got kicked off the team."Danny Ainge, the Celtics' executive director of basketball operations, is far from alone in weighing the talent/potential issue against the behavior issue."I think it weighs a lot with everybody because you have concerns," Ainge says. "You have concerns any time a player gets kicked off his college basketball team and has as many problems as he had in his college program. Not every one of those guys gets better and grows up and learns from those mistakes. Some do."</div>http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/ar...ransition_game/ <-- More in article
