Jay Williams said: he was riding a motorcycle he wasn't licensed to drive, according to Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles officials, and doing so in violation of a standard NBA player contract. This boy is about as goofed up as Hurley was, his career is in jeporday.

I am not a professional athelete. Car accidents with people under 26 shows their lack of driving skillz, that's why insurance for that age is out the roof.

It's stupid for anyone to drive a motorcycle, let alone a star athlete. I feel bad for the guy... he didn't commit a crime... all he can be accused of is a total lack of judgement. You don't tempt fate... and driving a bike is just that... dumb.

I think Hurley's accident involved the guy not wearing his seat belt. Unfortunately, another tendency of some macho athletes... not wearing a seat belt automatically puts whatever happens into the "dumb" category.

Who was "childishly gloating"

[Edited by - Pike on 06/24/2003 11:19:28]

Chicago showed high interest in trying to retain Crawford before the season ended, around March/April time frame. And Williams always wanted to ball for NY, we just hope this type of injury is not career ending.

should read "but" not nut.

By STEVE ASCHBURNER

With the ball he is Jason Kidd-type dangerous. He can get it to other people and knows how to keep his dribble. He's always looking to drive it down your throat and make something happen. Not every day in this league is your point guard your best offensive player. He will be.
-- Orlando Magic general manager John Gabriel, back in June 2002, on former Duke guard Jay Williams

On the eve of the NBA Draft, with their futures so bright, their smiles so wide and their team-logo caps so in need of breaking in, the best amateur basketball players in the world need to pause for a moment to think about Jay Williams.

A year ago, none of the prospects in the 2002 draft talent pool seemed better prepared for the rigors of the NBA, or more ready to help the team that selected him, than Williams.

He probably would have been the No. 1 pick in 2001 had he chosen to leave Duke then. And with a stellar junior season behind him with the Blue Devils, along with a sociology degree earned in just three years, Williams probably would have been the first player picked again --- if not for that towering arrival from the Far East, 7-foot-5 Yao Ming.

So Williams went at No. 2 to the Chicago Bulls, with nothing on his horizon but wins, NBA stardom, a four-year, $16.14 million contract and a revival of that once-proud franchise.

That was then. Now Williams is lying in a hospital bed at the Illinois Masonic Medical Center, two surgeries down and several more likely to go after smashing his left knee and pelvis in a career-jeopardizing motorcycle accident on Chicago's north side June 19.

He faces a full year's layoff and rehabilitation, and even then might never play again, at least not to the level that he once did so effortlessly.

Revive a franchise?

At this point, Williams will be ahead of the game if he can walk someday without a limp or sleep without painkillers.

The Bulls' first star since Michael Jordan?

He seems more likely to join a pair of previous No. 2 picks -- Scott May and David Greenwood -- in terms of disappointment and bad return on investment. As far as his NBA status, Williams will need hours of therapy and lots of luck to avoid sharing sentences with former Sacramento guard Bobby Hurley, whose hoop dreams wound up overturned in a ditch outside Arco Arena one gloomy night.

"[Williams] is one of the few players in this draft who can have an immediate impact,'' Milwaukee general manager Ernie Grunfeld said prior to that 2002 Draft. "He has great character, good leadership. He comes from a great program and has played in big games and produced. I see him in the Steve Francis mold. He'll make plays and score when you need it.''

They all talked about his leadership, his character, his maturity. Which made his long, spotty rookie season with the Bulls so hard to understand and his decisions earlier this month in buying the Yamaha motorcycle and gunning it on city streets almost impossible to fathom.

Of all the too-high, too-much, too-soon guys who spill out of the draft each June, of all the boundless-energy/assumed-immortality types who burn from both ends once they hit that grown-up world of fat checks and free time, Williams figured to be the least likely to wrap himself around a light pole.

He had been raised right by David and Althea, the only child in a house of discipline, love and achievement. Williams' father was one of nine siblings, children of a Florida farmer, who all attended and graduated from college. His mother was raised in a single-parent household, yet in 2001 earned her second master's degree.

When the Bulls selected him, adding him to a backcourt with Jamal Crawford and Trenton Hassell, they did it almost as much for the strength of his personality as for the enormity of his skills.

"We determined that very early, especially after we met him,'' then-GM Jerry Krause said. "This young man is not a 20-year-old.''

Well, Williams is 21 now, with a lackluster first year behind him and all sorts of discomfort and uncertainty ahead. Struggles with the Bulls' triangle offense, the forced rivalry at point guard with Crawford and the lofty expectations he failed to meet generally were beyond Williams' control.

But getting on that bike, without a helmet or a license and with a growing list of moving violations, was on him.

And to think, barely a week earlier, Williams had told a Chicago Tribune reporter: "I'm a lot more grown up. I went through a lot of bumps and bruises, but it gave me a thicker skin.''

LeBron James, the guaranteed No. 1 pick, already was playing it safer as a high school senior, tooling around in that street tank known as a Hummer.

To Darko Milicic; Carmelo Anthony; the other lottery picks; the first-rounders and the kids who simply hear their names read before the lights go out Thursday night: all we can say is, Give a thought, maybe a prayer, to Jay Williams. And Godspeed.

Better yet, God-not-so-fast.

Pike ya starting to sound like a "GRANDA PA" EASE UP AND SLOW YA ROLL ON THE LEFT COAST.

I feel the real question may be why turning professional causes such change in model players like Jay Williams.

The year before that, I believe Kwame Brown was clocked doing over 100mph in a construction zone. Thank God, there was no physical damage caused as a result of recklessness behavior.

Hopefully this is not a trend developing as a result of being selected a top 10 draft pick.

Looks like all eyes on Lebron