increased. He started nearly half the
games for Philly during the 2009-10 cam-
paign, before AI—now more like family to
Lou—returned to finish his career there.
From then on, Williams has embraced
being a reserve.
“My position was kind of weird because
I’m coming off the bench, but I’m doing
everything career-wise that you would
expect from All-Star guys,” says Lou, who
passed Dell Curry for the most bench
points ever back in March. “So why not
embrace it? It’s a different lane. There’s
rarely guys that do that. It’s a small group
of guys when you mention great six mans.”
His role has been pretty consistent
even as he’s changed teams. He signed
with his hometown Hawks in 2012, won
his first Sixth Man award with the Rap-
tors in 2015, was with the Lakers during
Kobe’s 2015-16 farewell tour and spent
less than half a season with the Rockets
before being hastily dealt to the Clippers
in June of 2017.
Within a five-month span, Williams
found himself on his third franchise. He’s
not one to lack confidence, but questions
started to flood his mind. He was visiting
China when the trade to the Clippers
happened and remembers getting a call
around 3 a.m. from his agent. Upon hear-
ing the news, he “cried like a baby.”
“Being on three teams in six months
was an eye-opener for me,” Williams
says. “Like, maybe I value myself more
than other teams value me or the League
values me. So I had to look in the mirror
like, This is Year 12, you’ve had a pretty
good run, you’ve had a pretty good career,
are you coming to the end of the road?”
In an ongoing group chat with his
teammates from Toronto (DeMar
DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, Chuck Hayes and
Amir Johnson), Williams disclosed that
he would play one more year—the last on
his contract—and then retire.
“Just to be frank, I told those guys,
'This year in L.A., I’m going to go out with
a clear mind and go do what the fuck I
want to do and I’m gonna go home,'” he
recalls with a smile. “That was my
mindset. I was planning my own farewell“I'M AN
ASSASSIN. I'M
ONE OF THOSE
PEOPLE THAT—
I'M NOT REALLY
TALKED ABOUT,
BUT EVERYBODY
KNOWS I'M
THERE."
36 SLAMONLINE.COM