Jayson Williams

Early life

Williams was born in Ritter, South Carolina, to Elijah Joshua "EJ" Williams and Barbara Williams. He is of Polish, Italian and African-American descent. His mother Barbara worked for years at Gouverneur skilled nursing facility in lower Manhattan. Raised Catholic, Williams moved to Brooklyn at the age of twelve and attended Christ The King Regional High School and St. John's University, both in New York City, and played on the basketball team at both.

Professional career

Williams was selected by the Phoenix Suns in the first round with the 21st pick of the 1990 NBA draft. His draft rights were thereafter traded by the Suns to the Philadelphia 76ers for a 1993 first-round draft choice on October 28, 1990. After two seasons as a bench player with the 76ers, Williams was traded to the New Jersey Nets for conditional draft choices on October 8, 1992.

While with the Nets, Williams only earned 12 starts in his first three seasons with the team before finally earning a full-time starting position in the 1996–97 season.

In the first game of the following season, Williams set a franchise record with 17 offensive rebounds (20 total) in a win over the Indiana Pacers.

In that 1997–98 season, Williams was named an All Star. He led the league in offensive rebounds and offensive rebound percentage while also finishing the season in the top five in total rebounds, rebounds per game, total rebound percentage and offensive rating.

Injury and retirement

Williams' career came to a sudden end on April 1, 1999, after he broke his right leg in a collision with teammate Stephon Marbury in a game against the Atlanta Hawks.{{cite web | url = https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19990402/2952848/nba-notebook----broken-leg-sidelines-nets-star-williams| title = Broken Leg Sidelines Nets Star Williams

In 2005, he briefly came out of retirement to play for the Idaho Stampede of the Continental Basketball Association.

Legal incidents

In 1992, Williams was accused of breaking a beer mug over a patron's head at a saloon in Chicago.

In 1994, Williams was accused of firing a semiautomatic weapon into the parking lot at the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

He was never criminally charged in either case.

The death of Gus Christofi

On February 14, 2002, 55-year-old limousine driver Costas "Gus" Christofi was shot and killed at Williams's estate in Alexandria Township, New Jersey. Christofi had been hired to drive Williams's NBA charity team from a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, event to his mansion, about 30 mi northwest of Trenton, New Jersey. Members of Williams's NBA charity basketball team were present at the scene. The New York Post reported that Williams was showing people around his 30000 sqft house when he aimed a shotgun at Christofi and killed him.

Initial trial and appeal

In April 2004, Williams was acquitted of the more serious charges against him, but the court's jury deadlocked on a charge of reckless manslaughter. He was convicted on four counts of trying to cover up the shooting.

On April 21, 2006, a Hunterdon County appeals court ruled that Williams could be retried on a reckless manslaughter charge.

Suicidal agitation

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) reported on April 27, 2009, that Williams had become suicidal and violent in a NYC hotel room. Upon entering the Manhattan hotel room police said that Williams was visibly intoxicated, and that empty bottles of prescription medications were found around the room. Officers stunned him with a taser and took him to a hospital.

Bar fight

A few weeks after the NYC tasering incident, on May 24, 2009, Williams allegedly punched a man in the face at a bar in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was charged with simple assault. The charges were later dropped.

Drunken car accident

A few days before an important courtroom appearance, Williams crashed his Mercedes into a tree in lower Manhattan. He was charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) after this early morning accident on January 5, 2010.

Convictions and sentencing

On January 11, 2010, Williams pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the 2002 death of Christofi. A month later, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison with possible parole after 18 months.

He was convicted and sentenced to an additional year in Rikers Island for the DWI. of which he served 8 months.

Williams was ultimately released from prison in April 2012.

Effects of prison

After being released from his 27 months in prison, Williams told ESPN: "I don't want to see anybody in a cage, man. Everybody thinks they're so tough... I've never seen a newbie go to jail and not cry the first two months every night, scream and have to get suicide prevention in front of his cell."

At that time, Williams reported being haunted not only by the shooting but also by how that incident contributed to the death of his own father: "I struggle with the loss of lives. The loss of Mr. Christofi and the loss of my father. An hour doesn't go by that I don't think about [the accident], think about how can I replay this as to bring back Mr. Christofi. And not one person died that night, two people died. My dad had never been in the hospital in 70 years. That's the ripple effect."

Indoor lacrosse

Williams was the principal owner of the New Jersey Storm of the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The franchise operated for two seasons, 2002 and 2003, before moving to Anaheim, California, and becoming the Anaheim Storm.

The team went out of business before the start of the 2006 season.

Books

Following his NBA retirement, Williams wrote Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs and True Love in the NBA (not to be confused with the Loose Balls book revolving around the life and death of the American Basketball Association), a memoir that was published in 2001. Intended to be a humorous perspective on his life in the NBA, later readers noted that the book contained nine separate episodes in which Williams behaved recklessly with guns. In one incident, the former NFL football player Wayne Chrebet was nearly shot. In another, the uncle of Manute Bol was threatened with an unloaded handgun.

In 2012, Williams published a second book, an autobiography entitled Humbled ~ Letters From Prison. The book included revelations about him having been abused as a child.

A third book, Crashing: A Memoir, was published in December 2018.

Personal life

In 1996, Williams proposed during halftime of a nationally televised basketball game to model Cynthia Bailey. The two later parted.

Williams married Kellie Batiste in December 1999; they divorced soon afterward. In 2000, he married Tanya Young and together they had two daughters. The couple divorced in 2011. Young was a cast member of VH1's reality TV show Basketball Wives: LA.

Williams' father, Elijah Joshua Williams, died of a stroke at the age of 76 in November 2009. Williams had three sisters, with two having died from AIDS (one after a blood transfusion following a mugging), while his third sister was killed by her husband in a murder-suicide.

Legacy

Williams was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame with the Class of 2016 and into the St. John's University athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

|- | 52 || 1 || 9.8 || .447 || .500 || .661 || 2.1 || .3 || .2 || .1 || 3.5 |- | 50 || 8 || 12.9 || .364 || || .636 || 2.9 || .2 || .4 || .4 || 4.1 |- | 12 || 2 || 11.6 || .457 || || .389 || 3.4 || .0 || .3 || .3 || 4.1 |- | 70 || 0 || 12.5 || .427 || || .605 || 3.8 || .4 || .2 || .5 || 4.6 |- | 75 || 6 || 13.1 || .461 || .000 || .533 || 5.7 || .5 || .3 || .4 || 4.8 |- | 80 || 6 || 23.2 || .423 || .286 || .592 || 10.0 || .6 || .4 || .7 || 9.0 |- | 41 || 40 || 34.9 || .409 || .000 || .590 || 13.5 || 1.2 || .6 || .9 || 13.4 |- | 65 || 65 || 36.0 || .498 || .000 || .666 || 13.6 || 1.0 || .7 || .8 || 12.9 |- | 30 || 30 || 34.0 || .445 || .000 || .565 || 12.0 || 1.1 || .8 || 2.0 || 8.1 |- class="sortbottom" | 475 || 158 || 20.6 || .440 || .125 || .606 || 7.5 || .6 || .4 || .6 || 7.3 |- class="sortbottom" | 1 || 0 || 19.0 || .667 || || || 10.0 || 1.0 || .0 || .0 || 4.0

Playoffs

|- | 4 || 0 || 2.5 || .800 || || || 1.0 || .0 || .0 || .0 || 2.0 |- | 2 || 0 || 8.5 || .000 || || .500 || 1.5 || .0 || .0 || .0 || .5 |- | 3 || 2 || 38.7 || .429 || || .500 || 14.0 || 1.7 || .7 || 1.0 || 7.0 |- class="sortbottom" | 9 || 2 || 15.9 || .448 || || .500 || 5.4 || .6 || .2 || .3 || 3.3

References

References

1. (2010-02-24). "Former NBA star Jayson Williams gets five-year sentence in shooting".
2. "Retired NBA player Jayson Williams leaves jail". ESPN.com.
3. "Jayson Williams". NNDB.
4. Brown, Amanda. (November 13, 2009). "E.J. Williams, father of former Nets star Jayson Williams, dies at 76". The Star-Ledger.
5. Lisi, Clemente. (2002-02-23). "VIOLENCE HAS BEEN A LIFELONG TEAMMATE".
6. Powell, Michael. (2002-03-01). "Two Sides of Ex-NBA Star Clash in Shooting Death". Washington Post.
7. [https://www.espn.com/classic/biography/s/williams_jayson_add.html Williams sets Nets rebounding record]
8. (April 3, 1999). "Nets Make Plans Without Williams". Chicago Tribune.
9. (June 28, 2000). "Nets To Announce Jayson Is Retiring". New York Daily News.
10. (January 12, 2005). "Facing re-trial, Williams joins Idaho team – NBA – ESPN". ESPN.com.
11. Hanley, Robert. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E7D71F3CF93AA15751C0A9629C8B63 "Reporter's Notebook; At Former Nets Star's Trial, A Tangle of Contradictions"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', February 29, 2004. Retrieved December 20, 2007. "Five friends and four Harlem Globetrotters were in various parts of Jayson Williams's country home in Alexandria Township, N.J., when a chauffeur, Costas Christofi, was killed two years ago by a blast from a shotgun held by Mr. Williams."
12. Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger. (February 23, 2010). "Jayson Williams sentencing comes after lengthy legal battle that spans 8 years". Nj.com.
13. Jones, Richard G. [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/22/nyregion/22williams.html "Ex-Nets Star Faces Retrial for a Shooting at His Home"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 22, 2006, Retrieved April 27, 2009. "Jayson Williams can be retried on a charge of reckless manslaughter stemming from the shooting of a limousine driver in 2002, a New Jersey appeals court ruled on Friday."
14. (August 31, 2009). "Jayson Williams seeks to overturn convictions".
15. Jennifer Golson/The Star-Ledger. (January 3, 2008). "Jayson Williams retrial on hold as state appeals racial slur ruling". Nj.com.
16. Associated Press, [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E4DE143AF93BA15757C0A96F9C8B63 "Former Net Williams Tasered By the Police"], April 28, 2009. Retrieved May 14, 2009.
17. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120724114902/http://www1.bet.com/WebApplications/betRoot/Templates/Posting_ArticlePrintFriendly.aspx?%7B2BC158CB-88B0-4014-ADAF-2CE38896BB00%7D "Troubled Jayson Williams Busted for Alleged Assault"]. BET.com
18. Baker, Al (January 5, 2010) [http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/jayson-williams-in-car-accident/ "Jayson Williams Charged with D.W.I. After Accident"]. ''New York Times ''
19. Siemaszko, Corky (January 11, 2010) [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/11/2010-01-11_exnets_star_jayson_williams.html Ex-Net Jayson Williams pleads guilty to fatal shooting of driver; faces minimum 18 months in jail]. NY Dailynews
20. (February 23, 2010). "Williams to serve at least 18 months".
21. (August 13, 2011). "Retired NBA star Jayson Williams to transfer from N.J. prison to Rikers Island". NJ.com.
22. (April 13, 2012). "Ex-NBA Star Jayson Williams – Released from Rikers Island". tmz.com.
23. "BREAKING! Troubled NBA Star Jayson Williams Released From Prison". Vibe.
24. Deborah Brunswick. (August 20, 2010). "Former NBA player sentenced to additional year in prison". [[CNN ok News]].
25. (April 14, 2012). "Jayson Williams released from prison on Rikers Island". NJ.com.
26. [https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/8431391/nba-jayson-williams-interview Jayson Williams speaking freely]
27. Dwyer, Kelly (January 30, 2012) [https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/former-star-jayson-williams-moses-rikers-writing-book-200006656.html Former All-Star Jayson Williams, the ‘Moses of Rikers,’ is writing a new book]. ''Yahoo Sports''
28. (October 21, 2022). "Daughters of Jayson Williams denounce his St. John's HOF nod". Associated Press.
29. (September 19, 2011). "Tanya Young Williams, Jayson Williams' Estranged Wife, On 'Basketball Wives,' Domestic Violence".