A Cautionary Tale for ALL Student - Athletes: 10-year NBA vet now homeless

Thomas "Ray Williams" retired in 1987 without a college degree or professional skill, although he played at the University of Minnesota and San Jacinto Junior College, and was selected 10th overall in the 1977 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks.


Amid the ceaseless acquisitive frenzy that is NBA free agency, the Boston Globe dropped a harrowing profile of Ray Williams, a former captain of the New York Knicks and a reserve guard on the Boston Celtics' 1985 NBA Finals team who played for six teams during a 10-year NBA career from the late '70s through the mid-'80s. Williams' name might not ring out with today's fans, but he averaged 20 points per game in two different seasons (1979-80 and 1981-82), hung 52 on the Detroit Pistons as a member of the New Jersey Nets on April 17, 1982, and once drew (admittedly aspirational) comparisons to the great Walt Frazier.

Now, writes the Globe's Bob Hohler, he's homeless.

Desperate times ‎

POMPANO BEACH, FL — Every night at bedtime, former Celtic Ray Williams locks the doors of his home: a broken-down 1992 Buick, rusting on a back street where he ran out of everything. The 10-year NBA veteran formerly known as “Sugar Ray’’ leans back in the driver’s seat, drapes his legs over the center console, and rests his head on a pillow of tattered towels. He tunes his boom box to gospel music, closes his eyes, and wonders.

Williams, a generation removed from staying in first-class hotels with Larry Bird and Co. in their drive to the 1985 NBA Finals, mostly wonders how much more he can bear. He is not new to poverty, illness, homelessness. Or quiet desperation. In recent weeks, he has lived on bread and water. “They say God won’t give you more than you can handle,’’ Williams said in his roadside sedan. “But this is wearing me out.’’

A former top-10 NBA draft pick who once scored 52 points in a game, Williams is a face of big-time basketball’s underclass. As the NBA employs players whose average annual salaries top $5 million, Williams is among scores of retired players for whom the good life vanished not long after the final whistle. Dozens of NBA retirees, including Williams and his brother, Gus, a two-time All-Star, have sought bankruptcy protection.

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The most sobering thing about Hohler's piece? Williams' decline into unemployment, poverty and homelessness appears to have just kind of ... happened. Williams, a former University of Minnesota standout who averaged 15.5 points and nearly six assists per game during his time in the league, adamantly tells Hohler that he's "never fallen prey to drugs, alcohol, or gambling," and he's never been arrested, so it's not like he's some shiftless sociopath whom we can easily vilify.

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