To say Robert Williams had an unfortunate start to his career after being selected by the Boston Celtics in the first round would be an understatement.
He missed the original conference call, missed his flight to practice with the Summer League team, lost his wallet twice, and the list goes on. The basketball universe didn’t let up on the 21-year-old when he finally did start to play. Six minutes into his Summer League action, Williams was taken out of the contest and remained sidelined for the following games due to irritation in existing tendinitis.
The Texas A&M product tallied 40 minutes of action over the Celtics’ four preseason games, with his best showing coming versus the Cleveland Cavaliers on Oct. 2. Williams went 3-for-4 from the field, ending with six points and four boards.
Monday night, Williams checked in to a regular season game for the first time of his career. This came late in the third quarter, with a Celtics team struggling to find their identity and down nine versus the Orlando Magic.
Unfortunately, it seems that fans will have to continue waiting to find out if Williams’ upside does, in fact, deter the poor work ethic and attitude that was warned about in scouting reports. Marcus Morris replaced him in the closing seconds of the third and achieved nothing but goose eggs across the box score.
