Why Every NBA Team Will Compete To Sign Grant Williams This Summer
Grant Williams went from playing thirty minutes per game and matching up incredibly with Giannis Antetokounmpo, last season, under Ime Udoka to hardly seeing the floor, this season, under Joe Mazzula. The debate as to why Williams minutes have diminished has been limited, but why? It’s become no secret that Mazzula favors Sam Hausers' reliable perimeter shooting over Grant Williams amorphous game, and to be fair, Hauser has shown that he can, in most situations, at the very least hold his own on defense. To add to this, it’s evident that Grant’s defense has fallen off from its peak level in last year's NBA Playoffs.
Additionally, Williams shooting took a dive following his hot start to the 2022/23 regular season, and the general ‘vibe’ was that he became entitled to his position within the team. Mazzula’s philosophical change to the Celtics revolved around the team playing quicker and shooting more three-pointers, with a primary focus on the team's offensive output, leaving the defensive results as a responsibility of the team's on-court leaders. Former coach Udoka prioritized defensive integrity more and regularly held players directly accountable on the spot for their on-court shortcomings.
It’s likely that this is the primary change that’s resulted in Williams decreased minutes. However, it’s become clear in Boston’s second-round matchup vs. the Philadelphia 76ers that Grant Williams is still a core ingredient to Bostons’ playoff success. In a league where any NBA team hoping to make a Finals run will need to go through one or more of Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, or Nikola Jokic, having a hybrid forward with both the strength to reliably guard the league's elite bigs for meaningful minutes on one end, and stretch them out to the three-point line or face a potential barrage of three’s is a highly valuable asset. Grant Williams is basically PJ Tucker who can actually guard five positions and is willing to shoot when called upon…
With that said Williams took a lot of criticism for opting to not accept an extension at the end of last year's season which was reported to be in the four-year fifty-million dollar range. While this is purely speculative, it’s possible that aside from wanting to gamble on himself, as the Vice President of the NBA Players Association, it’s possible that Williams thought it may be harmful to the overall financial landscape of role players to settle for a conservative but fair deal, and rather reach for a more lucrative deal that would thrust other role players into a higher salary range, giving him a greater approval rating among his peers.
Whether this is true or not, come this offseason, teams will line up to sign Grant Williams for the following reasons.
- As aforementioned, Williams’ combination of size, spacing, and ability to switch high on screens is the hottest commodity within the role-player market in the NBA.
- Williams is a high-character player. While he’s known to be a big talker in the locker room and has been portrayed as a slightly polarizing character by local media coverage, all signs point to Grant being a consummate professional. It’s rare that a player can go through the ebbs and flows of Grant’s minutes within the rotation and stay as ready as he has to be a high-impact player in important games so consistently.
- Grant is still evolving as a player. It’s evident that his game took some steps back this year as his shooting and defense experienced slight dips, but if NBA player developmental history shows anything, it’s that progress is not linear. While Grant will probably yield less than he’d previously hoped, landing him in the 13–16 million dollar range is low-risk high-reward for teams hoping to compete, with the worst-case scenario being what’s happened to him this season on Boston, where he’s in and out of the rotation, but still available and ready to come in when called upon to provide his pest-like abilities on both sides of the court.
