Williams Low-Risk Nets Flier Hoping To Jump-Start Career

Give Me Sport

Nets General Manager Sean Marks is known for his affinity for fliers. Young players who for various reasons flame out elsewhere often find opportunities to resurrect their careers in Brooklyn. These players vary in background, from former lottery picks to low-or-undrafted projects. They can be acquired in afterthought trades or even picked up off the street.

While the successes (i.e. Spencer Dinwiddie, Joe Harris) got Marks respect from the media, his record isn’t spotless, nor should anyone expect it to be. The batting average isn’t as important as unearthing that rare gem. A year ago, Marks signed a trio of free agents who qualified for “flier” status. Among Lonnie Walker IV, Dennis Smith Jr., and Trendon Watford, only the latter was brought back for the 2024-25 campaign. You keep digging.

For this upcoming training camp, I’m going to focus on just one such flier—at least until/if point guard Killian Hayes graduates out of Exhibit 10 status--former Memphis wing Ziaire Williams.

After a relatively quiet freshman season at Stanford, Williams went No. 10 overall in the 2021 NBA Draft only to be dealt by New Orleans in a multiplayer trade that featured a swap of centers Steven Adams and Jonas Valanciunas. Williams’ 6-foot 9 size and agility jumped off the page, even if his collegiate basketball production was relatively pedestrian.

In Memphis, Williams never really got off the ground. Oh, there were a few outlier performances, such as his 27-point night versus Milwaukee while defending Damian Lillard last season. However, 2023-24 will go down as a disappointment, as he first played his way out of the starting lineup and then was done for the year after a hard fall during a March 2 contest against Portland injured his back and hip flexor.

Williams’ Draft slot meant that he was guaranteed $6.133 million for this season. That was too rich for Memphis’ salary cap management team. Instead, the Grizzlies used a 2030 second round pick originating from Dallas to offload him to Brooklyn in exchange for immediately waived forward Mamadi Diakite and the rights to a 31-year old Euro-stash.  

So while it’s fair to say that it barely cost the Nets pennies for Marks to acquire Williams, the contract is hefty enough where he must have seen something to put Brooklyn perilously close (about $1.28 million) to the luxury tax threshold the team desperately needs to avoid breaching this season. I should note that tax penalties are calculated based on end-of-season payroll, so the Nets would have time to make moves to correct any overage that transpires.

Still, what made Williams so intriguing to Marks that this is where he chose to allocate precious cap resources?

Many times, a player’s NBA success/struggle is related to confidence. Williams, who was drafted at 19 and with a reach pick at that, played like his was shattered in Memphis. He was always going to need a sound development program to work on, well, pretty much everything from his body to ball skills, including shooting. The Grizzlies, thanks to a series of injury plagues during his three seasons, were often in disarray on the offensive end with little in the way of shot creators and facilitators that would have been helpful in boosting Williams’ confidence off the ball.

Not that Brooklyn is going to be paradise for Williams, but their development program has a pretty good track record for those willing to put in the hours. Just look at what Noah Clowney accomplished in relatively short order last year. He went from a guy who looked lost during Summer League to an all-court player with huge potential by season’s end. If Williams similarly buys in, there are tools in his kit to make him a serviceable piece that he can market next offseason in free agency.

I’ve heard Williams called “a young colt”, a guy who’ll run the floor, cut to the basket, and work his way inside for stick-back rebounds. His athleticism is why the Grizzlies felt comfortable having him defend Stephen Curry for a bit during the second round of the 2022 NBA playoffs and Lillard last season. We all know how much Marks values switchability.

As for the shooting, I did a double take when I read that in college he had trouble on the left side of the floor. I never heard of such a thing. Lo and behold, here are his three-point rates from each corner as a pro, per NBA.com:

                                           Left                                                Right

2021-22                           20-for-73 (27.4%)         21-for-47 (44.7%)

2022-23                           6-for-31 (19.4%)            6-for-13 (46.2%)

2023-24                           10-for-36 (27.8%)         17-for-41 (41.5%)     

So while Williams’ 30% overall career three-point rate appears cringeworthy, totaling the above up, you get 43.6% from the right corner and 25.7% from the left. Just for comparison purposes, Mikal Bridges shot 41% from the right corner last season.

Williams’ issue, therefore, is not necessarily the stroke. From what I’ve gathered, he has happy feet, which makes him prone to rushing his shots. With work—on both his base footwork and his upper body strength so he doesn’t get bumped off balance so easily—it might be correctable.

The Nets currently have a bit of a glut at Williams’ position, even before Bojan Bogdanovic gets healthy, but that can change. Bogdanovic, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Cam Johnson will likely all be the subject of trade rumors through the deadline. Williams, a restricted free agent after the season (albeit with a huge cap hold), could be a nice insurance policy for Marks if he pans out.   

Maybe Williams, like Hayes, the former No. 7 overall pick in 2020 who was ignominiously waived by Detroit last season, will take this turn of events as a humbling experience and be amenable to his new learning environment. And if it can’t be fixed, no biggie. It’s a lost cause, tank year in Brooklyn anyway. He’ll be gone and forgotten soon enough, like a host of other fliers whom Marks and his basketball staff attempted to rehabilitate but crashed to Earth.