‘THE OTHER SIDE OF HARD’
Williams shouldn’t be here, but he’s a perfect fit
It’s one of the best turnaround stories in professional sports: the revival of the Phoenix Suns. It was a long, hot journey through the desert of irrelevance for Phoenix to become an oasis of winning basketball. But, finally, the Suns have risen. Here’s the third chapter in a six-part series about how they did it.
Part III: “The other side of hard”
Oct. 23, 2019, Phoenix
Monty Williams had to remove his glasses and take a deep breath.
He never, ever could have predicted that his life’s path would have landed him in Phoenix with a second chance to fulfill his destiny.
It had been a long journey from his days as big man on campus in South Bend, Indiana, where he found love and learned dedication, and if it hadn’t been for his faith and the friends he made along the way, it’s hard to imagine it could have turned out like this.
He wiped tears from his eyes. It didn’t matter that he was behind a lectern in front of a room full of reporters and cameras and microphones and notebooks and strangers.
He needed a moment. It was his first game back after a few years away, and it was a win. He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathed in and held it for a moment as a lifetime of memories came rushing in a blink.
Spring 2016, Oklahoma City
Monty Williams wasn’t taking very good care of himself.
His wife, Ingrid, had died in a car crash and the outpouring of condolences was overwhelming. But eventually, all that stops, and the people left behind are alone to deal with their grief and regrets. Sometimes, he’d forget to eat.
“I could burn through a bowl of corn flakes on a bad day,” Williams said.
Returning to the sidelines as an NBA head coach wasn’t a realistic goal in those days. Somedays, he had a hard time dragging himself out of bed.
But friends like Billy Donovan, then the head coach in Oklahoma City, and his wife, Christine, wouldn’t let him fall apart. They would bring food and visit with him and his five kids, giving him a reason to shower and shave and, in time, smile.
Williams would eventually take a job in San Antonio, but there’s no way it could have happened without the support he received in Oklahoma City from the people who helped take care of him when he wasn’t taking very good care of himself.
It’s funny how things happen, though. He always seemed to come across important people down by the River Walk.
1996-97 NBA season, San Antonio
Monty Williams was around season no one talks about.
These days, Gregg Popovich is a fivetime NBA champion. He’s the guy who drafted Hall of Famers like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
But in 1997, he was the front office executive who put together the worst team in the league.
It wasn’t really Pop’s fault, but there’s no room for excuses in pro sports.
The team’s best player, David Robinson, missed most of the year with a broken foot.
And he wasn’t the only guy who was out for significant time that season.
Chuck Person missed the whole year. Charles Smith missed most of the year. And Sean Elliott missed half.
A young Monty Williams was out there with an aging Dominique Wilkins and a couple of scrappy guards who would go on to become NBA head coaches in Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro.
Williams missed a few games with various injuries, but for the most part, he was on the court every night, giving the Spurs what he had.
A lot of the time, he was getting his rear end kicked, but he never folded. He was developing the mentality that “everything you want is on the other side of hard,” a mantra he repeats constantly these days.
It stood out.
Popovich saw something in Williams, and the two have remained close in the 30 years since that season no one talks about.
Without being hokey, Popovich knew Williams had a heart for the game.
for the
Summer 1992, South Bend, Indiana
Monty Williams knows he’s not supposed
to be here, not by worldly standards, anyway.
He was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy after his freshman season at Notre Dame, meaning his heart was too strong for his own good. Thick heart muscles don’t pump blood well. Doctors told him to give up basketball or it could kill him.
He left the team and was directionless.
His girlfriend, Ingrid, urged him to lean not on his own understanding, but on his faith.
He prayed a lot.
“I believed everything that the Bible said about healing,” Williams told the University of Notre Dame athletics department for the book “Strong of Heart: Profiles of Notre Dame Athletics 2010.”
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta believe it’s gonna get better.
“The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up … the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working,” Williams would repeat, either aloud or in his mind.
Before long, he was playing pickup ball and destroying random guys at the rec center.
The doctors evaluated him again, and he was cleared to play.
He rejoined the team and hit the court with the vigor of a man who knows that he’s not supposed to be here, not by worldly standards, anyway.
September 2016, San Antonio
Monty Williams was putting himself
back together, piece by piece.
Turns out, that was in love and basketball.
He downplays his role as vice president of basketball operations for the San Antonio Spurs, suggesting his mentor, Popovich, was just giving him a job to get him out of the house.
Maybe.
But no one who knows Williams would ever expect him to just sit around collecting a paycheck.
Williams spent two seasons Antonio’s front office.
The first year most of the Spurs’ transactions involved shuttling guys back and forth between the developmental league and the pro roster. That summer, however, was busier than an Alamo historian during tourist season.
San Antonio added Rudy Gay and resigned LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol and Ginobili.
Williams was coming around.
He was ready to coach again, and he took a job as lead assistant with the Philadelphia 76ers.
He was also ready to start living again, and he started seeing a woman named Lisa. They eventually married.
Williams gives his wife and kids credit for helping him feel whole again.
They’ve put him in position to help transform the Phoenix Suns from a punchline into a powerhouse.
“They’re my safe place, for sure,” he said. “Being able to go home and get a break from (basketball) by diving into the relationships that are most important in my life. Being able to also allow them to
in San enjoy this season has been fun, too.
“My boys are still at an age where we’re still having really good conversations about life … talking about social issues has been a big topic in our house. Teaching them to continue to have love for people and serve and not let the mistakes or silliness that’s going on in our society affect the way that they conduct themselves.
“Relying on my wife, especially on game nights, to talk before I go out. She helps me to kind of calm myself down and get myself together and pray and try not to be as nervous as I typically am. That has been huge for me.
“I get phone calls from my daughters before games and text messages after games and messages when I’m on the road … I’m just thankful that I have those relationships with my family because they keep me focused on the things that are most important: My faith and them.
“And then I realize that I get to be a basketball coach, and that gives me a bit of perspective.”
Piece by piece, he’s put himself back together.
Today, Phoenix
Monty Williams, in just his second season back on the bench, has the Suns contending for the best record in the NBA. It’s not something anyone could have predicted.
He’s not from Phoenix. He was never a member of the Suns.
He’s a former player in a league brimming with coaches who never wore an NBA uniform. And he’s a Black coach, working under a Black general manager, a shockingly rare combination.
His return to the bench came after five years away, and he’s helping transform a franchise that spent most of a decade at the bottom of the standings.
Williams is doing it by convincing a group of guys who didn’t know each other before this season to bond and believe and bust their butts in pursuit of a common goal.
His point guard, Chris Paul, is new. His glue guy, Jae Crowder, is new. His bench scorers, E’Twaun Moore and Langston Galloway, are new. His energy guys, Torrey Craig and Cameron Payne, are new.
But they’ve all locked in on Coach Mont’s plan.
He’s old school, and the Suns aren’t some group of guys who are, as he might put it, “happy on the farm” to be flinging up a bunch of 3-pointers.
Williams’ best players, Paul and Devin Booker, are just as likely to score on short jump shots as they are deep balls.
And the Suns play a smothering, unyielding, oppressive sort of defense that’s uncommon in the modern NBA.
Williams is the prohibitive favorite for coach of the year, and of course he is. He was destined to coach in the NBA. And he’s attacked the job with the vigor of a man who knows the blessing of a second chance.