CLEVELAND – Zach LaVine’s eyes lit up, even before the question asked of him was complete.
“Oooohhhhh … Pat looked good,” LaVine said with a big smirk. “Keep him there.”
Keep him there.
A shared sentiment by many when Williams has a splash play or a flashy game. The fans, his teammates, the Bulls coaching staff, the front office, they all want to take those special Williams moments and hope that they are a launching point to consistency for the fifth year forward.
There’s one problem with that.
Williams operates in a different head space. He hears the noise – good and bad – but he has no interest being sentenced by a large group playing jury to his career. No, there is only one judge that carries that kind of weight and criticism.
Williams knows him well. After all, he sees him every morning in the mirror.
“Nobody can ever say something to me that I haven’t said to myself,” Williams said. “That’s why if it seems like I don’t care or I’m unemotional about it, that’s because I’ve said it to myself 10 times over.
“Where I’m at in my career? I don’t know what other people felt it should have been. I know that I feel I’m making my way towards it. You never want it to come easy. I didn’t want to be one of those guys that bloom early, blossom early … Nah, I’d rather have it this way. Bumps and bruises, people talk (bleep) about me, ups and downs with an injury, ups and downs with everything. It builds an appreciation when I get where I’m going, it builds a resolve for when I do have a bad game, I can say, ‘I’ve been here before. Just move on.’ “
Maybe, just maybe, the former No. 4 overall pick is there.
Last week against Cleveland, only 13 points, but a 10-rebound night. Then Wednesday in New York, 18 points, six rebounds, and of course the nasty put-back dunk that had LaVine raving about Williams afterwards. Even in Friday’s rematch with the Cavs, Williams had 17 points, handed out nine assists and went 4-of-5 from three-point range.
Three games, 16 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, all while usually guarding the opposing team’s best scorer.
It felt special and it looked special when the team watched it on film.
Williams wasn’t running from any of that.
“I’m special, yeah,” he said very matter-of-factly. “One thousand percent. Every player has that confidence, but kind of when I go back and watch the film I look and remind myself, ‘I really can.’ It’s a work in progress. I think I’ve gotten a lot more consistent at it.
“You’re going to have misses and makes, but it’s how are you playing? How do you feel? Are you making plays on both ends? If I had the answer on all of this I would have done fixed it a few years ago.”
Better late than never? Maybe, but as Bulls coach Billy Donovan has pointed out many times when it comes to Williams, the journey is different for each player. What Donovan has been seeing lately, however, is promising.
“The game has probably slowed down for him when you’re looking at his reads and what he’s doing,” Donovan said. “He’s recognizing opportunities to drive the ball, shoot the ball.
“I do think he’s going to the glass a lot harder and more aggressively. It’s not that he didn’t want to be aggressive. I think it was more of, ‘How do I go about doing that?’ “
A question that Williams has finally seemed to answer.
“Too much work was put in. This was going to happen,” Williams said. “Maybe not when you wanted it to happen, maybe when others thought it should happen. I would have liked it to happen November 2020. It’s November 2024, and this is where I’m at. I’m comfortable with that. No matter how it seems or how I sound about it, no one wants it more than I do.”
Just keep it there.