The Dichotomy of Jason Williams or, How We Choose to Live
Recent rumors of a possible Jason Williams comeback to the D’Antoni-led Knicks have made me reminisce about the career he had, or rather, could have had.
It’s hard to forget how he burst onto the scene in 1998 with the Sacramento Kings, as the 7th pick in the draft after getting kicked out of the University of Florida for repeated drug use. His was a brash, unadulterated style of play that helped revitalize the Kings and, with a cast of Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, and Peja Stojakovic, turned them into instant playoff contenders. As a rookie, his jersey was among the top 5 sellers in the league.
If I could choose to have anyone in the league’s highlight reel, it might be Jason Williams’. Seriously; watch the video! He didn’t just make flashy passes once in a while; his penchant for out-of-the-ordinary moves affected his whole outlook of the game and created angles that just didn’t exist for other players. On the strength of a few playoff appearances, including an almost-passing-of-the-torch 2-3 loss to the Jazz in the 1999 Playoffs, I figured that we were blessed with the gift of the next Maravich for years to come (Williams to Webber: the new age Stockton to Malone!).
Of course, J-Will’s strength, his court vision and passing ability, were also the source of his biggest weakness, risk-taking. Which gets me to the heart of this post— compromise. After an erratic 2001 playoff performance with the Kings, J-Will was traded to the Grizzlies, and then the Heat in 2005, where under the tutelage of Hubie Brown and Pat Riley he successively (and successfully) toned down his style of play to the point where he was a league leader in assist-to-turnover ratio (he never averaged more than 1.89 turnovers per game in his last 3 seasons). This second video, of his Miami playing days, is just depressing, a 5 minute primer on bounce passes and mid-range jump shots.
Does Williams represent the compromise so many of us are forced to make with our lives… choosing the prosaic, the mundane, that god-awful term “ordinary”, for the promise of security and comfort over the opportunity to be brilliant and flame out early? Do too many shun the burden of potential, creative and otherwise, that lies within each of us?
Considering this question makes me realize how pointless or non-existent that very dilemma is; that it’s not so much what you choose, it’s why you make that choice. Everything can have meaning (or, equivalently, nothing has inherent meaning); even routine and normalcy, pursued deeply enough, can have enlightening value.
At the end of the day, J-Will made the transformation necessary to be effective and helped his teammates win a ring; I’m sure he sleeps well at night. Still, he’ll always remain an archetype of flashy point guard creativity. While we wonder if that star could’ve shone brighter, the ultimate question, still lingering, is whether brightness even matters.
