Grant Williams‘ tenure with the Boston Celtics has come to an end. The versatile forward will be suiting up for the Dallas Mavericks next season courtesy of a sign-and-trade shortly after free agency began.
Recently, Williams sat down with Heavy on Sports during a media availability at his ‘Grant Williams Family Foundation event,’ where he was accepting a $10,000 donation for his foundation from Quest Nutrition.
Quest NutritionGrant Williams’ (Photo Courtesy of Quest Nutrition/Derek McCoy)
During the conversation, Williams was asked about a comment he made during a recent appearance on JJ Redicks ‘Old Man and The Three’ podcast, where he noted that there have been two or three moments that truly p***** him off during his career, thus far.
“I would say the Donovan Mitchell moment in terms of, like, missing the free throws in Cleveland, I would say, really the Miami Heat over the past [few years] that’s like the same moment, in a way,” Williams said. “Those two were definitely frustrating for me. And then I think my second year really just how I approached, and I played in that year, like, I could have definitely improved a little bit more than I had.
And I was frustrated by that. So those were probably the three biggest moments in my career in terms of frustrations. But I feel like you’ve grown because of things like that. You don’t always have success. You got to have some failures along the way.”
Fortunately for Williams, he now has a fresh start in Dallas and can begin putting some of his more frustrating moments in a Celtics jersey behind him.
Grant Williams Claims he Was The Strongest Celtic
During the same media availability, Williams was asked to finally settle the score over which member of the Celtics roster is the strongest. In recent seasons, we’ve seen Jayson Tatum and Williams debate who is stronger between the pair. According to Williams, he was ‘clearly’ the strongest member of the roster, followed by Robert Williams.
“[Me] Without a doubt, like, there’s no comparison. JT is strong. He has leg strength. He’s a good deadlifter,” Williams said. “But in terms of everything else, ask him – he can’t bench, his chest is bird chest, it’s small. And in terms of everything else, I can outlift him any day of the week.
But the legs I’ll give him, like deadlifting, he might beat me in squatting. I don’t think he’ll beat me. It’s just certain things I think he’ll win at. I don’t know why he’s good at deadlifting. Maybe it’s because it’s the only thing he really is practising all the time. But that’s what I’ll say. I’m definitely stronger. Without a doubt… Rob stronger than JT, too. So JT, now is not even the strongest one in the locker room.”
With Williams departing to Dallas, it looks like Tatum will move up in the strength ranks to be the second-strongest member of the Celtics rotation behind Robert Williams.
Grant Williams Details Changes Under Joe Mazzulla
During Williams’ recent appearance on ‘Old Man and The Three,’ he discussed how the Celtics’ philosophy changed under Joe Mazzulla after he had taken over the head coaching follow following Ime Udoka‘s suspension and ultimate release.
“So I think for Ime, he understood the importance of the defensive end and understanding that if a team scores 80 points, 90 points, no matter how many points we score, we give ourselves a really, really good chance of winning. While I think that Joe has a little bit more offensive, like, ‘If we make 20 threes in the game, we’re gonna win each game because we’ll have enough points because we’re going to have twos and fouls of things to add up.’”
The Celtics appear to have doubled down on Mazzulla’s preference for offense during the current offseason, adding Kristaps Porzingis to the roster to create a new big three and give the roster an additional scoring punch across all three levels.