09-27-2023, 08:23 AM
Interesting article in the Athletic about Williams from the view of a Boston writer
The physical chess match
Then there’s Grant Williams, whose brute force has refined enough to allow him to bring the attack to the offense rather than try to survive body blow after body blow. What made Smart and Grant Williams’ impact so hard to define and quantify is that they are players of aggregate value. They don’t just make winning plays, but they subtly chip away to slowly build an advantage.
Williams was a foul machine when he first entered the league, but managed to turn into, well, a much more efficient foul machine last year. But that was part of his job, at least when his coach fully trusted him. He was there to body, annoy, disrupt, and eventually defocus opposing stars. He could take Jimmy Butler, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and annoy them in a way that was sustainable.
He became so much better at being aggressive with his hands before a player would put the ball on the floor, as well as when they would gather up into their shot. He started to nail the angles defending drives so that he could make dislodging contact without getting called for blocking fouls. The leash was just too short for him this past season to let him get away with his sometimes over-aggressive tendencies on each end.
https://archive.ph/32Z5S
The physical chess match
Then there’s Grant Williams, whose brute force has refined enough to allow him to bring the attack to the offense rather than try to survive body blow after body blow. What made Smart and Grant Williams’ impact so hard to define and quantify is that they are players of aggregate value. They don’t just make winning plays, but they subtly chip away to slowly build an advantage.
Williams was a foul machine when he first entered the league, but managed to turn into, well, a much more efficient foul machine last year. But that was part of his job, at least when his coach fully trusted him. He was there to body, annoy, disrupt, and eventually defocus opposing stars. He could take Jimmy Butler, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and annoy them in a way that was sustainable.
He became so much better at being aggressive with his hands before a player would put the ball on the floor, as well as when they would gather up into their shot. He started to nail the angles defending drives so that he could make dislodging contact without getting called for blocking fouls. The leash was just too short for him this past season to let him get away with his sometimes over-aggressive tendencies on each end.
https://archive.ph/32Z5S
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