What was said publicly concerning Jayson Williams’ Nets career was ominous enough and gave little hope that he will play in 2000-01.
But what was said privately was even worse and confirmed suspicions that Williams will not play again.
“If Jayson told you exactly how he felt he’d say stick a fork in him, he’s done,” said one of several friends and confidants who insist Williams has accepted that his career, which achieved All-Star status in 1998, is over.
Williams, acknowledging daily pain and a limp, maintained he will never quit trying to play again.
“I don’t ever want to think my career is over,” Williams, 32, said yesterday. “I love to play basketball and it’s the only thing I do really well. …Any which way it would go, I don’t think it would be more than one year. I’m not going to sit up here and say I’m retiring.”
He may have no choice. It’s not retirement but being physically unable.
Williams, with his agent Sal DiFazio, staged a news conference for his foundation’s Celebrity Softball Game, in conjunction with the Newark Bears, at Newark’s Riverfront Stadium July 29 to benefit Pediatric Aids and Parkinson’s disease. Inevitably, the conversation turned from the event, which features an appearance by ‘N Sync, to Williams’ condition.
“If for some reason, a degenerative condition that is getting worse every day, started to get better, then yes, he could revisit the issue of playing,” said DiFazio. “But let’s not hold out hope for something unrealistic.
“The doctors [in the next few weeks] are going to make a decision on whether he can play based upon where he is right now and where he was in March,” added DiFazio. “Frankly, off the workouts we became aware that the residual effects of the changes in his knee [from] the leg fracture and resulting cartilage damage were so serious that it has raised substantial questions as to where his future lies.”
In March, Williams still was steadfastly rehabilitating a horrific right knee and leg injury suffered April 1, 1999. When he returned to an estimated 80-85 percent performance level, Williams broke his left foot. But the foot was irrelevant, DiFazio said, citing “residual” effects from practicing, such as swelling and pain, which makes playing an impossibility.
“Although he was able to function at some level in practice those days,” DiFazio said, “what many people didn’t see were the residual effects: severe swelling, a lot of pain. Unfortunately, those are conditions that are not going to allow him to continue with his career in the NBA if they continue…If the knee is such that all the rehab in the world is never going to get him to the point where he can play then that’s what it is and that’s not going to change.”
If Williams does not play in the upcoming season, – “rest assured he would have a difficult time [doing it],” DiFazio said – the final three years of his six-year, $85 million deal comes off the Nets’ salary cap following the ’00-01 campaign.
The Nets would be entitled to some cap relief this season, an exception of 8 percent above the league average. Williams, if unable to perform for medical reasons, gets paid in full with insurance footing the bill after paying 80 percent the past two years.
“I can’t hold up an organization. I don’t know if it would be one year or five years. One monkey don’t stop the show,” Williams said. “I don’t want to tell the Nets, ‘Hey, I’ll be ready in December, next year, give me two years.’ They’ve got draft picks and other moves to make if I’m not back.”
