Time is right to break out
Celtics rookie Robert Williams III just now starting to recognize his talent
VIVIAN, La. — Based on the influences from those close to him in Vivian and nearby Oil City, Robert Williams III couldn’t have turned out much differently. Louisiana State University jumped into the recruiting game late, long after Texas A&M and Oregon. Assistant coach Eric Musselman attended a closed winter practice. It was cold, which is why North Caddo librarian Jessica Slack was worried when her grandfather, an 84-year-old Vivian entrepreneur named Joe Lawler, knocked on her office door wearing a sleeveless LSU game jersey, with no undershirt.
Lawler was a major donor to the basketball program, with his own banner high on a wall behind one of the baskets, and considered himself Williams’ No. 1 fan.
Slack wasn’t sure how he scored the LSU jersey, but tagged along when he rushed outside in an attempt to chase down Musselman. Lawler started pestering the coach for an assessment, and when Musselman said he had a few other players to scout the old man got a little agitated. Slack, sensing trouble, took over.
“I was very disappointed, and I let (Musselman) know,” she said. “You just made a really big mistake. No. 1, that’s my kid out there, and No. 2, you don’t realize. You’d never hear Robert say look at me, and by then A&M had already offered him. He’s going to have to go to A&M and I’m like, grrr, no, we’re Tigers.”
When Williams led A&M into Baton Rouge on Feb. 4, 2017, he scored 18 points and added four blocks in the Aggies’ second win that season over LSU. Slack wagged a finger at her alma mater.
“When we played (A&M) and they beat us, I was like, ‘That’s what you get. You had Robert Williams, and you let him go.’”
Out of his shell
Home was a cocoon for Williams — perhaps even more so than for most entering the NBA — with a support network that made the unknown unnerving.
But Williams liked the college experience so much — the student section brandished signs
of “Stay” during his freshman year — that he did, indeed return for another year.
And then he had to break free again last spring, albeit with some reluctance. He turned down an invitation to sit with his family in the NBA’s Green Room on draft night, instead inviting everyone he knew to a local Buffalo Wild Wings. But an even more radical break was coming.
“You know how they say fame and fortune? That was my concern,” said Tondra Williams, Robert III’s mother. “If it was given to him, I was going to worry about him. I didn’t want him to go there and it would get into his head, or he would get into a lot of stuff — the wrong stuff. That was my worry.”
Williams began his NBA career with an overflowing plate. He’s a first-time father, with the birth of a daughter, Ava, in early December to a Texas A&M classmate.
“He has a lot of help, people talking to him about time management, showing him the maximum amount of time he can spend with the baby and make sure he’s doing what he needs to do,” said Williams’ former AAU coach Ricky Evans. “Right now, he’s probably not seeing the baby as much as he wants to, but he’ll make up for it in the offseason.”
Williams’ father, Robert Jr., always filled the role of disciplinarian from afar in Houston, where he moved and remarried after leaving the family when his son was 12. He subsequently put an estimated 75,000 miles on his Chevy truck driving to games between Vivian and College Station.
He is a little bemused now. His son’s first step into the NBA was errant. Robert III missed the first day of summer league practice after missing a flight, and then came the birth announcement.
“Well, he’s gonna find out like the rest of us,” said Robert Jr. “It’s not easy to juggle a career when you start with a newborn kid. He didn’t tell me about it because he knew I would lose it.”
But count Robert Jr. in the camp that believes that missed flight and practice may have been a blessing for Williams. The rookie’s life has been structured down to the minute by Brad Stevens and his staff ever since.
“My original thought was, ‘This is the way he’s gonna get it,’” said Robert Jr. “You’re a pro now. You have to grow up. It occurred to me that’s what he needed — someone in his face letting him know this ain’t college. He took it to heart, too. It doesn’t surprise me that his work ethic is as good as it is. Now he has people constantly letting him know how it’s going to be.”
But the nickname lingers.
What’s in a name?
The moniker “Time Lord,” created by an inventive member of the Celtics’ Twitter community as a result of Williams’ early time management issues, was not received well back home.
His sister, Brittanni, went on Twitter to remind people that her brother’s nickname was actually “Boo-Butt” — given him by Tondra from a lullaby she sang to Williams as an infant sitting in her lap. Tondra prefers not to acknowledge the inspiration behind “Time Lord,” choosing to believe it has something to do with his timing as a shot blocker. Some, like teacher and friend Donna Pannell, took offense once social media caught fire.
“There were times I would read what people were posting on Instagram,” she said. “I would quit reading it, because I would get so defensive of him. I’m thinking, Ya’ll don’t know what a totally good person he is, not just as a basketball player, just a good person. The cutdowns and such, he’s still a kid. He doesn’t have experience. I know he has skills beyond what most kids at that age have.” Slack admits, “My claws came out a bit,” while also realizing the problem was self-created. “At the end of the day yeah, he had to own it,” she said. “I was like, ‘Dude, you did it, you were irresponsible. This is your job. You have a job now. College is one thing. But you have a job that you’re getting paid to do. Like I wake up every day to go to work, this is now your assignment.’ “Next time he was like, ‘You’re right, this is my job.’”
Pannell and Slack were stunned by two recent calls from Williams that both teachers believe is another sign of his maturity. Instead of asking about the team, or his friends, he wanted a report on North Caddo’s recently improved state educational ranking.
“I was like, ‘Where’s Robert, am I still talking to Robert?’” said Pannell. “Now he’s more concerned with the welfare of the school academically, because now he’s been in a place where he sees the value of what we do here. He sees a bigger picture.”
Right on time
There’s also a new picture. To help Williams adapt, Brittanni moved to Boston with her brother, into a place not far from the Celtics’ Brighton practice facility. Chefs and nutritionists at the Auerbach Center take care of his meals. She monitors his schedule, knocks on his bedroom door to make sure he’s not over-sleeping.
“Now, some mornings I wake up thinking he’s in his room sleeping,” said Brittanni. “If it’s not a game day and his door is closed, I have to go over there and say, where’s Boo-Butt? But he’s not in there. Then he’ll come back and say, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you Bri, I had to do this charity thing for so-and-so.’ I was like, hey, I don’t have to tell him, ‘You have to get up. Get this done.’”
Some things haven’t changed, though. His ego isn’t any larger. The next time Williams called home after blocking Anthony Davis twice during a Dec. 10 game against New Orleans, he was predictably low-key.
In this way he’s like Tondra, whose own reaction to that signature night was to say, “Yes, I saw it, it’s basketball isn’t it?’”
But mention of that same moment brought a spark to Evans’ eyes.
“He treats it like it’s normal. No, it’s not normal, that’s one of the best players in the league,” said the AAU coach. “He shows everybody else how good he can be, but in his mind that’s just normal. That’s what he does ... His instinct, his God-given ability is to block shots.
“Kind of like dunking for him — his reaction is, ‘I don’t see the big deal, but I guess I’m making everybody else happy.’”