Celtics’ Grant Williams: ‘No frustrations’ after no agreement on contract extension

In an ideal world, Grant Williams would have liked to get a contract extension done with the Celtics by Monday’s deadline. He would have liked to not have uncertainty looming over him all season, and he would have liked to be locked in with the C’s for years to come.

But a deal never came to fruition, and Williams is just fine with that.

As he enters the fourth and final year of his rookie contract, Williams was eligible for a rookie extension, but he and the C’s couldn’t come to an agreement before Monday’s 6 p.m. deadline, which means he’ll be a restricted free agent next summer. Williams, though, was not disappointed, and he was ready to turn the page as the Celtics restart their championship pursuit this season.

“It’s one of those things you just have to move on from,” Williams said at Tuesday morning’s shootaround. “You have your goal and you just determine the value and for you, you just gotta perform. That’s all you have to go do. … You go through negotiations, sometimes negotiations don’t go the way you want them to. You can only persevere and push through.”

“Absolutely, you want it to get settled. You want to get a deal, you want to make sure you’re locked in with the guys you want to be with for years to come. But it doesn’t happen. For me, emotions-wise, it doesn’t really affect my mind much because at the end of the day, I’m gonna go out there and do what I do. Do the job that I’m asked to do, perform in the situations I need to perform, and focus on the rest of the stuff the following year. There are other things you can control, you can only control what you can and move forward with that.”

Williams realized that a deal wouldn’t get done at around 5:30 on Monday, when it was clear that neither side was budging.

“I wasn’t moving off of what I wanted, and I don’t think they were either,” Williams said.

Williams knows that he could have guaranteed himself life-changing money if he accepted the Celtics’ offer. But the 23-year-old is looking at the bigger picture.

While he certainly could be betting on himself to have a breakout season and earn a bigger payday next summer, Williams has an eye on what deals like his mean for the league – it’s expected that the salary cap will increase next season – and the standard he could set for players who are like him after he emerged as a valuable 3-and-D threat last season.

“Everyone makes the claim for life-changing money,” Williams said. “And it’s a good claim to have, but it’s one of those things that you never want to take a bad deal for (anyone) around you. When you look across the league, when you look at the role that I play in the players’ association, the idea is that you understand where the league is going in the future and you understand where the league is currently at. So for me it wasn’t a matter of life-changing money, it was a matter of value not only for this year but the years to come. I think that for both sides, we all negotiated to get to that point.

“And there was no ill will, there were no frustrations. It was one of those things that you just couldn’t come to terms. It doesn’t mean that a deal doesn’t get done next year, it doesn’t mean a deal won’t get done in the future.

“So for us, it’s just a matter of perspective. Like, I want to make sure that not only the deal that I take is something that I feel confident about, but it’s something that it doesn’t mess up the guys around me, it doesn’t mess up the market for the guys who do the things that I do. I feel like you look at the guys who didn’t take extensions, they’re pretty much in the same position. And for me, that’s huge, that’s valuable, because I care about every single player in this league. I care about every single player in each organization that has to deal with free agency, that has to deal with the issues that necessarily we have in this league. So we’re on the right path. We’re on the right steps. So we just have to go out there and do what we do.”

Now that he’s essentially playing for a contract, Williams – who’s expected to take on a bigger role to start the season with the absence of Rob Williams – could be out to prove himself this season. But that’s not his approach. He wants to keep his energy on playing his role for a team with championship aspirations, and let the rest take care of itself after.

“If you think about proving yourself, it’s more so thinking of the individual,” he said. “For me, I’ve always been about the team. I’ve always been a guy that focuses his energy on making his team better and making his teammates around him happy. Making his teammates around him more excited to play the game every single day of this long season. For me, that’s kind of my perspective going into it. You have to be that same person, that same human. Not let the other stuff affect you and just focus on the things that matter. That’s winning and performing with the group of guys you have.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/AKeyCaq