by Jay Williams
The promise of bonding together as a team was replaced with an every-man-for-himself mentality. We were completely dysfunctional. The lowest point came late in January when I rolled my ankle in Miami. I went against everything I believed in as a player and decided to sit out instead of playing through the pain. I put myself on the injured reserve list for a couple of weeks and missed five games.
Plain and simple: I quit.
I had never quit anything before. I was a fighter. I was as defeated as I’d ever felt in my life. I wasn’t particularly close with any of my teammates, the press was all over me, and I could only imagine what the fans were saying, what the guys upstairs were saying. Earlier in the season, I’d made ill-advised comments to the press about how the city of Chicago deserved better and perhaps the team needed to be shaken up if things didn’t right themselves. At the time, I thought my being outspoken would display leadership, but being a rookie, it completely backfired on me. And today I completely understand how foolish I was for not keeping quiet and letting others do the talking. I was too young, immature, and inexperienced. And my numbers didn’t exactly help matters. I’d have a very solid outing followed by two or three duds in a row. I was in no position to lead.
I ended up no better than anyone else by season’s end, but rather a part of the problem. I started to rationalize doing selfish things like hopping on a private plane to Vegas fresh off a practice with a game the next night. Or being cocky about playing well in a double-digit loss at Orlando and rewarding myself by partying with friends that same night in Miami. And what happened the next day against the Heat? I’d play 30 minutes and shoot 1-for-10 from the field and 1-for-4 from the line. I remember Coach Bill Cartwright pulling me aside to discuss my questionable commitment to the team after he heard from teammates that they’d seen me out late the night before. Then, all I could think was how messed up it was that they sold me out, and why wasn’t their commitment being called into question if they were out late partying, too? Now, I just shake my head thinking about how idiotic I was for not holding myself to a higher standard.
One of the very few bright spots that year was our assistant coach Pete Myers, who was competitive as hell but had a funny way of calling us out. Eddy Curry, who was just not catching on to the triangle offense we played, kept setting the wrong screens, and each time he did, you could hear Pete slapping his legs and stomping his feet on the sideline. He took his displeasure to the next level: Eddy came up and set the wrong screen—again—and Pete yelled, “God dammit!” Next thing you know, Pete’s asking, to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” “Eddy, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Eddyyyy?” It was the funniest shit I had heard in my life. We were in the middle of a game and Pete was playing the dozens. “Eddy, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me, Eddyyy?” Crazy comedy.
Eddy wasn’t the only one to feel Pete’s comedic wrath. We were playing Milwaukee once, and I couldn’t stop Sam Cassell for any amount of money. The guy was as slow as molasses, but he just kept getting bucket after bucket. He finished with 29 points and nine rebounds after going 14-of-16 from the free-throw line. Weeks later, when we were watching tape of that game as we prepared to face them again, Pete stopped the tape, looked at me, and said, “J Will, what’s up? Sam just busted your ass about nine possessions straight. When are you going to get some pride and play some defense?” Then he started the tape and yelled, “It’s about to be ten possessions. Watch this. Watch how he does this one on you. Watch now. God damn, boy, that’s embarrassing. I don’t even want to invite my family to games if you’re going to play defense like that.”
Early on, I hoped I’d eventually learn to respect Bill as a coach, but as the season progressed, my opinion of him didn’t change. As far as most of us were concerned, he was in way over his head.
The first red flag came just four games into the season when we were in Toronto. During a time-out near the end of the game, Bill was drawing up a complicated play when Jalen reached over and tapped at the clipboard, saying, “We’re not runnin’ that.” I thought, Oh, this should be good. Coach is about to lay into his ass. Bill just stared blankly at Jalen, then looked at the team and proceeded to tap the clipboard.
“Okay, Jalen, what do you want to run?”
“Give me the ball,” he demanded.
I just sat there on the bench thinking, Did he just tell the coach what we were going to do? And did the coach just bitch out?
It’d be one thing for a coach to take suggestions. It’s another altogether to flat-out cower to a player’s demands. Luckily, Jalen ended up making the shot to take us to overtime. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been the only one to recollect that day. I just noted it and moved on. But then there was a litany of other issues that arose during the season. It almost felt like a constant chatter of complaints from the guys, including me, about Bill not knowing what he was doing.
This might’ve only been Bill’s second year as a head coach, but he had been an assistant on the Bulls bench for five seasons before Jerry Krause chose to promote him to the head job. He got fired fourteen games into the next season. After close to a decade as an assistant coach for the Nets and the Suns, Bill left to coach in Japan, and today he’s coaching the Mexican national team.
During the final seven games of the season, I really felt like I’d finally found my mojo. We decided to shift into a three-guard set where Jalen, Jamal, and I shared the floor together for long stretches of time. For once, it didn’t feel like we were stagnant, with the ball dying in one player’s hands. I developed a terrific chemistry with Jamal, and both of us ended up playing our best personal basketball during that stretch. We stopped battling with each other and started working together. It started to become fun again. I shot better than 60 percent from the field over that span, and my legs felt stronger than ever. Jamal, meanwhile, was on a tear, averaging 23 points and six assists per game while shooting almost 50 percent from the field. I had never played with someone as talented as Jamal. His speed, his handle, his nose for the basket—he had everything. And he’s still doing it—at an even higher level—all these years later. Our final game of the season was in the United Center against reigning MVP Allen Iverson and his 76ers on April 15, 2003. If that night was a harbinger of things to come, then things were looking up. Yes, Iverson ended up with 42 points, but we still won the game by nine. Jalen, Jamal, and I combined for 67 points on 22-of-42 from the field, 22 assists, 9-for-9 from the free-throw line, and 10-for-15 from downtown that night. And to top it off, Eddy went 14-of-16 from the field for 31 points. There was much to look forward to heading into the following season.
A few minutes into the third quarter, Jamal got the ball, drove hard to the rim, took a hit by Eric Snow, and fell to the floor. I sprinted over to my teammate for maybe the first time all year and went to pick him up. By the time I got over to Jamal, Jalen was already by his side, extending his hand. I reached out to grab Jamal’s other hand. Here we were, helping to pick each other up after months of breaking each other down. We were becoming a team. Finally.
Things were going to be okay.
9
Rehab
I’ve obsessed over how my life could’ve ended up differently had I swerved just a foot more to the right and missed that pole altogether. But then I think about what would’ve been had I not swerved at all.
Gone.
I was still here, ravaged by one serious setback after another.
June 19, 2003
I severed my left leg’s femoral artery, the main artery that provides oxygenated blood to the tissues of the leg, and required a vein graft. The sacrum, the triangular bone at the base of my spine, was cracked and needed a large metal pin, which I have to this day because I refuse to have yet another surgery to remove it. My pubic symphysis, the cartilage connecting my right and left pubic bones, pried apart about ten inches, causing severe nerve damage and a virtual coin toss on whether I’d be impotent the rest of my life. The dislocation of m
y knee not only tore every ligament in the joint but also severed my peroneal nerve, which provides the signal from your brain to lift up your foot. Losing this nerve meant I would never properly control my foot again.
During the first couple of weeks in the ICU in Chicago, the doctors focused on closing the severed artery in my left leg so I wouldn’t lose it or, worse, my life. They then operated on my pelvis to close the gap in my pubic symphysis and the crack in my sacrum. It wouldn’t be until after I got to North Carolina that I would undergo surgery to repair the leg and my peroneal nerve.
July 2, 2003
I met my surgeon, Dr. Claude Moorman, once I arrived at Duke University Hospital. Dr. Moorman, a behemoth of a man who comes from a long line of football players, continues to oversee the Duke Sports Medicine Center today. As physically imposing as he was, he was the dictionary definition of a gentle giant. Upon my arrival, he immediately brought me into surgery to wash out all of my wounds and close my fasciectomy incisions in order to keep any of my lacerations from getting infected after the long trip by land and air.
While recovering from the procedure, my doctors began to ponder the next steps. Four days later, Dr. Moorman, Dr. James Andrews, who has operated on one Hall of Famer after another, and Dr. Richard Steadman, another top orthopedic surgeon based in Colorado, held a conference call to brainstorm the best way to reconstruct my knee. It was like having a dream team of surgeons come together to formulate the game plan.
July 25, 2003
Thirty-six days after my accident was when the surgery to repair my knee finally took place. When people think of a joint dislocation, they might picture a finger or a shoulder, where treatment involves popping it back into place. But with a knee dislocation, the bones of the leg completely separate (the femur is separated from the tibia and the fibula) and the ligaments that hold the bones together tear. Without proper and timely treatment, there is a risk of losing the leg altogether. The surgery the doctors performed on my knee involved reconstructing my anterior cruciate ligament and reattaching my posterior cruciate ligament. My lateral collateral and medial collateral ligaments also had to be reconstructed. They had to reattach my biceps tendons and also had to do a peroneal nerve graft.
Translation: I was in very bad shape.
By this point, I had been on my back for more than a month, unable to conjure the strength to move. My entire left leg was elevated and restrained for a month after the procedure. The amount of scar tissue and stiffness that built up during the healing process was staggering, and in turn, the challenges that lay ahead when it came time for physical therapy were astronomical.
By mid-August—five operations later—it was time to begin the rehabilitation process. My next location following my stay in Duke University Hospital was five miles away at 4643 Owls Wood Lane. It was a beautiful 7,400-square-foot home that sat on six acres, which my parents rented for us in a pinch. They wanted me to be close to the Duke medical facilities, but it just so happened that I was all of two houses away from Coach K. I was going to need his strength, and this made it easy for him to stop by to provide it. In addition to my parents living with me, my mother’s friend Laurie stayed over from time to time to chip in. And then there was Deuce, Buddha, and Duke, our three rottweilers. And let’s not forget my day-to-day nurse, Judy, who helped me get through the worst of it.
A day or so later, once I’d settled in, my physical therapist, Bob Bruzga, and my occupational therapist, Jill Freck, started coming over for preliminary sessions. We began with tasks as simple as testing my sensations. They would touch my leg with a metal pointer at different points going up and down, asking me if I could feel it or not. At first, I could feel practically no contact whatsoever. They tried applying different amounts of pressure to see at what point my body would respond.
It barely registered anything but pain.
And the pain was two things: constant and unbearable. It was so bad that it would often wake me up from a dead sleep. As a result, I needed someone to sleep in my room those first several weeks to help me shift positions, go to the bathroom, get water, and pat my face down with a compress after I’d wake up in a cold sweat from reliving the accident in my dreams.
Everybody would pitch in, changing out my bandages, checking on the swelling, and making sure the stiches were still intact. I had never felt more like a charity case. My left foot was held in a 90-degree position with a metal plate pressed up against the bottom of it to maintain the integrity. A large metal apparatus we dubbed the Titanic enclosed my entire left leg, leaving just a sliver open for ventilation from my toes all the way to my hip. Whatever part of my leg wasn’t enclosed by this contraption was fully covered in bandages.
I was, for lack of a better word, stuck.
For the first few months I could only sleep on my back, but as my strength began to return, the doctors said it was okay for me to change positions. Being able to change sleeping positions is one of those little blessings you don’t notice until you can no longer do it. I wasn’t strong enough to turn myself; my core was too weak, and I had the Titanic pressing down on me.
Between the physical and psychic misery that was my current state, I resorted to numbing myself from having to face this head-on. I no longer wanted to have to think about defecating on myself in bed and having to ask someone else, not named Judy, to not only clean up my feces but also to wipe my own ass afterwards. It was just too much for me to handle.
This was the start of my eventual addiction to OxyContin.
I had hit rock bottom, convinced that I no longer wanted to live.
Two months and five days following the accident, I stood up out of bed for the first time . . . for three seconds. It took four people to get me there: my mom, my dad, Laurie, and Judy. I swung myself to the side of the bed. My dad lifted me around my torso while my mom and Laurie held me under each arm. Judy had to hold my leg straight out because it was still in the brace. As I got halfway to standing, it felt like my pelvis was going to snap, so they sat me back down right away. We tried again a little later, after the pain subsided. I was finally able to raise myself to a point where I was standing straight up with my leg extended outward. Standing gave me the same sensation I felt when I got hurt—like scalding hot water was being poured from my pelvis down to my foot. The pain was so excruciating that I sat down yelling in agony shortly before passing out. While I hadn’t lasted long on my feet, the act itself was a major victory. It was amazing to think that my life would now be measured in such small firsts.
September 4, 2003
It took my family two and a half hours to get me from my bed to the car. I left the house for the first time to go to physical therapy, where they were going to take my leg out of the brace.
Sitting on the therapy table at what was once called the Finch-Yeager Building at Duke, with Bob to my right and my parents and Noelle to my left, I looked at my left leg and couldn’t believe my eyes. My leg was like a wire. To give you a sense of how small it was, the blue brace I had to wear around my thigh doesn’t even fit around my forearm today. Just the sight of my leg was nauseating.
When Bob said to me, “Pull your foot up,” I pulled with every single ounce of strength I had. To stare at my foot while in a dead sweat just from trying to move it, only to watch it go nowhere—not even an inch—broke me mentally. It was as if I had no leg and somebody had surgically attached a rope to my pelvis and hung a weight shaped like my foot from it.
After I collected myself emotionally, I was ready to continue with the session. Bob held my leg ever so gently with both of his hands and tested my flexibility. Sitting at the edge of the table, with one of his hands supporting the back of my left thigh just above the knee and the other holding my calf, he slowly began to bend my leg to check its dexterity. My leg bent only 45 degrees at best, and the process was grueling. By the time he finished bending my knee, it felt like my heel was touching my ass.
I had a long way to go.
On top of everything el
se, I suffered from phantom pains due to the nerve-regeneration process. My leg could’ve been on fire and I wouldn’t have felt a thing. But I absolutely felt every bit of the nerve trying to regenerate itself—it was as if someone were stabbing me in every part of my leg with a dull knife blade. Doctors compared the pains to childbirth. The nerve was projected to heal itself about an inch per month.
I had over a foot and a half to go.
For every small step forward, I couldn’t help but feel that I was taking two giant steps back. My knee refused to go any further than 50 degrees, and all the efforts from physical therapy were to no avail. Arthroscopic surgery was suggested.
October 25, 2003
It was always comforting to see Dr. Moorman; however, I was hoping it would be for checkups and consultations rather than another dreaded surgery. While the orthopedic scope on my knee wasn’t nearly as invasive as my other procedures, it still required me to go under the knife. Here, Moorman inserted the arthroscope—a slim, pencil-like instrument with a camera at the end—into my knee joint, which fed an image to a monitor. On the screen, he was able to see the structure of my knee down to the most minute detail. That allowed him to remove any of the damaged scar tissue.
The next day, it was right back to rehab.
It was imperative that I get the knee joint moving right away so no scar tissue would build back up. Inflammation became a major issue, which hindered my flexibility post-op. Every day was monotonous—my knee would get stretched harder and harder, only to gain no more than a couple of degrees. The only variation was whether it was Bob or Jill going through the motions with me. My doctors, not settling for that outcome, decided a more aggressive surgery was necessary.
