| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1968-02-22)February 22, 1968 (age 57) Ritter, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Listed height | 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) |
| Listed weight | 240 lb (109 kg) |
| Career information | |
| High school | Christ the King (Queens, New York) |
| College | St. John's (1987–1990) |
| NBA draft | 1990: 1st round, 21st overall pick |
| Drafted by | Phoenix Suns |
| Playing career | 1990–2000, 2005 |
| Position | Power forward /center |
| Number | 55 |
| Career history | |
| 1990–1992 | Philadelphia 76ers |
| 1992–2000 | New Jersey Nets |
| 2005 | Idaho Stampede |
| Career highlights | |
| |
| Career NBA statistics | |
| Points | 3,472 (7.3 ppg) |
| Rebounds | 3,584 (7.5 rpg) |
| Assists | 287 (0.6 apg) |
Stats at NBA.com  | |
| Stats atBasketball Reference | |
Jayson Williams (born February 22, 1968) is an American former professionalbasketball player who played in theNational Basketball Association (NBA) for eleven seasons, primarily with theNew Jersey Nets. He played his first three seasons with thePhiladelphia 76ers, who acquired him in trade with thePhoenix Suns following the1990 NBA draft. Williams spent the remainder of his career with the Nets and was anAll-Star in 1998. He was inducted into theNew York City Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.
Williams was charged in 2002 with the accidental shooting death of a limousine driver. He pled guilty toaggravated assault in 2010 and served a 27-month prison sentence.[1][2]
Williams was born in Ritter, South Carolina, to Elijah Joshua "EJ" Williams and Barbara Williams. He is ofPolish,Italian andAfrican-American descent.[3] His mother Barbara worked for years at Gouverneur skilled nursing facility in lower Manhattan.[4] RaisedCatholic, Williams moved toBrooklyn at the age of twelve[5] and attendedChrist The King Regional High School andSt. John's University, both in New York City, and played on the basketball team at both.[6]
Williams was selected by thePhoenix Suns in the first round with the 21st pick of the1990 NBA draft. His draft rights were thereafter traded by the Suns to thePhiladelphia 76ers for a 1993 first-round draft choice on October 28, 1990. After two seasons as a bench player with the 76ers, Williams was traded to theNew Jersey Nets for conditional draft choices on October 8, 1992.
While with the Nets, Williams only earned 12 starts in his first three seasons with the team before finally earning a full-time starting position in the1996–97 season.
In the first game of the following season, Williams set a franchise record with 17 offensive rebounds (20 total) in a win over theIndiana Pacers.[7]
In that 1997–98season, Williams was named an All Star. He led the league in offensive rebounds and offensive rebound percentage while also finishing the season in the top five in total rebounds, rebounds per game, total rebound percentage and offensive rating.
Williams' career came to a sudden end on April 1, 1999, after he broke his right leg in a collision with teammateStephon Marbury in a game against theAtlanta Hawks.[8] The following day, Williams underwent career-ending surgery in which a plate and five screws were inserted into his leg.[9] After sitting out the entire1999–2000 season, Williams officially announced his retirement on June 28, 2000, at the age of 32 after 11 seasons.[10] At the time of the injury, Williams was in the first year of a six-year, $90 million contract.
In 2005, he briefly came out of retirement to play for theIdaho Stampede of theContinental Basketball Association.[11]
In 1992, Williams was accused of breaking a beer mug over a patron's head at asaloon in Chicago.
In 1994, Williams was accused of firing a semiautomatic weapon into the parking lot at theMeadowlands Sports Complex.
He was never criminally charged in either case.
On February 14, 2002, 55-year-oldlimousine driver Costas "Gus" Christofi was shot and killed at Williams's estate inAlexandria Township, New Jersey.[12] Christofi had been hired to drive Williams's NBA charity team from aBethlehem, Pennsylvania, event to hismansion, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest ofTrenton, New Jersey. Members of Williams's NBA charity basketball team were present at the scene. TheNew York Post reported that Williams was showing people around his 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) house when he aimed a shotgun at Christofi and killed him.
In April 2004, Williams was acquitted of the more serious charges against him, but the court's jury deadlocked on a charge of recklessmanslaughter. He was convicted on four counts of trying to cover up the shooting.[13]
On April 21, 2006, aHunterdon County appeals court ruled that Williams could be retried on a recklessmanslaughter charge.[14][15][16]
TheNew York City Police Department (NYPD) reported on April 27, 2009, that Williams had become suicidal and violent in a NYC hotel room. Upon entering theManhattan hotel room police said that Williams was visibly intoxicated, and that empty bottles of prescription medications were found around the room. Officers stunned him with a taser and took him to a hospital.[17]
A few weeks after the NYC tasering incident, on May 24, 2009, Williams allegedly punched a man in the face at a bar inRaleigh, North Carolina. He was charged with simple assault. The charges were later dropped.[18]
A few days before an important courtroom appearance, Williams crashed his Mercedes into a tree in lower Manhattan. He was charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) after this early morning accident on January 5, 2010.[19]
On January 11, 2010, Williams pleaded guilty toaggravated assault in the 2002 death of Christofi.[20] A month later, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison with possible parole after 18 months.[21][22]
He was convicted and sentenced to an additional year inRikers Island for theDWI.[23] of which he served 8 months.[23][24][25]
Williams was ultimately released from prison in April 2012.[26]
After being released from his 27 months in prison, Williams toldESPN: "I don't want to see anybody in a cage, man. Everybody thinks they're so tough... I've never seen a newbie go to jail and not cry the first two months every night, scream and have to get suicide prevention in front of his cell."
At that time, Williams reported being haunted not only by the shooting but also by how that incident contributed to the death of his own father: "I struggle with the loss of lives. The loss of Mr. Christofi and the loss of my father. An hour doesn't go by that I don't think about [the accident], think about how can I replay this as to bring back Mr. Christofi. And not one person died that night, two people died. My dad had never been in the hospital in 70 years. That's the ripple effect."[27]
Williams was the principal owner of theNew Jersey Storm of theNational Lacrosse League (NLL). The franchise operated for two seasons,2002 and2003, before moving toAnaheim, California, and becoming theAnaheim Storm.
The team went out of business before the start of the2006 season.
Following his NBA retirement, Williams wroteLoose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs and True Love in the NBA (not to be confused with theLoose Balls book revolving around the life and death of theAmerican Basketball Association), a memoir that was published in 2001.[book 1] Intended to be a humorous perspective on his life in the NBA, later readers noted that the book contained nine separate episodes in which Williams behaved recklessly with guns. In one incident, the formerNFL football playerWayne Chrebet was nearly shot. In another, the uncle ofManute Bol was threatened with an unloaded handgun.
In 2012, Williams published a second book, an autobiography entitledHumbled ~ Letters From Prison.[book 2] The book included revelations about him having been abused as a child.[28]
A third book,Crashing: A Memoir, was published in December 2018.[book 3]
In 1996, Williams proposed during halftime of a nationally televised basketball game to modelCynthia Bailey. The two later parted.
Williams married Kellie Batiste in December 1999; they divorced soon afterward. In 2000, he married Tanya Young and together they had two daughters.[29] The couple divorced in 2011.[30] Young was a cast member of VH1's reality TV showBasketball Wives: LA.
Williams' father, Elijah Joshua Williams, died of a stroke at the age of 76 in November 2009.[4] Williams had three sisters, with two having died from AIDS (one after a blood transfusion following a mugging), while his third sister was killed by her husband in amurder-suicide.
Williams was inducted into theNew York City Basketball Hall of Fame with the Class of 2016 and into theSt. John's University athletics Hall of Fame in 2023.
| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game |
| FG% | Field goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field goal percentage | FT% | Free throw percentage |
| RPG | Rebounds per game | APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game |
| BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game | Bold | Career high |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990–91 | Philadelphia | 52 | 1 | 9.8 | .447 | .500 | .661 | 2.1 | .3 | .2 | .1 | 3.5 |
| 1991–92 | Philadelphia | 50 | 8 | 12.9 | .364 | — | .636 | 2.9 | .2 | .4 | .4 | 4.1 |
| 1992–93 | New Jersey | 12 | 2 | 11.6 | .457 | — | .389 | 3.4 | .0 | .3 | .3 | 4.1 |
| 1993–94 | New Jersey | 70 | 0 | 12.5 | .427 | — | .605 | 3.8 | .4 | .2 | .5 | 4.6 |
| 1994–95 | New Jersey | 75 | 6 | 13.1 | .461 | .000 | .533 | 5.7 | .5 | .3 | .4 | 4.8 |
| 1995–96 | New Jersey | 80 | 6 | 23.2 | .423 | .286 | .592 | 10.0 | .6 | .4 | .7 | 9.0 |
| 1996–97 | New Jersey | 41 | 40 | 34.9 | .409 | .000 | .590 | 13.5 | 1.2 | .6 | .9 | 13.4 |
| 1997–98 | New Jersey | 65 | 65 | 36.0 | .498 | .000 | .666 | 13.6 | 1.0 | .7 | .8 | 12.9 |
| 1998–99 | New Jersey | 30 | 30 | 34.0 | .445 | .000 | .565 | 12.0 | 1.1 | .8 | 2.0 | 8.1 |
| Career | 475 | 158 | 20.6 | .440 | .125 | .606 | 7.5 | .6 | .4 | .6 | 7.3 | |
| All-Star | 1 | 0 | 19.0 | .667 | — | — | 10.0 | 1.0 | .0 | .0 | 4.0 | |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Philadelphia | 4 | 0 | 2.5 | .800 | — | — | 1.0 | .0 | .0 | .0 | 2.0 |
| 1994 | New Jersey | 2 | 0 | 8.5 | .000 | — | .500 | 1.5 | .0 | .0 | .0 | .5 |
| 1998 | New Jersey | 3 | 2 | 38.7 | .429 | — | .500 | 14.0 | 1.7 | .7 | 1.0 | 7.0 |
| Career | 9 | 2 | 15.9 | .448 | — | .500 | 5.4 | .6 | .2 | .3 | 3.3 | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |