Where There's a Will

In case you were wondering what former New Jersey Net Jayson Williams was up to on your average early May Tuesday night in the year 2007 – mind you, we’re talking about unfortunate firearm incident Jayson Williams, not unfortunate motorcycle incident Jason Williams – well, he was watching basketball, of course.

What did you expect he’d be doing?

But you may be interested to know that he was not watching his former NBA squad drop Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semis against the Cavs. No, as it just so happens he was quietly sitting against the base of the bleachers in a gym on the fifth floor of an anonymous high school on the West side of midtown Manhattan. (We know this because we happened to have suited up and played in the game directly following the one he was watching.)

What exactly was Jayson Williams doing at such a smoking hot venue as this, where there was literally not an open seat in the house? (And when we say there wasn’t an open seat in the house, we mean that the bleachers were collapsed so it wasn’t possible to sit on them.)

To be honest, we don’t really have an answer as to what he was doing there. Though if we had to speculate, we’d say that the rather tall guy on the team wearing blue may have been Monsieur Williams’ kin. Whether or not this was his next of kin we cannot say with any certainty, because we don’t even know how many kins he has and what age or gender they are, nor do we know whether or not any of them plays on the blue team in what we believe to be League #7 or #8 in the New York Urban Professionals Athletic League.

Whatever the case, for a man who was known for having such a magnetic personality during his days as a player, Jayson Williams was shockingly anonymous in what was very nearly an empty high school gym. In fact, with his hat pulled down, we almost didn’t even notice him. (Of course, from his perspective, that’s probably not such a bad thing.)

One last thought: It’s interesting that a player whose career so precipitously slipped away was sitting in a gym watching a bunch of guys clinging to their right to compete.