Celtics’ Amari Williams Leaves Lasting Legacy With Kentucky’s Mark Pope

The Boston Celtics utilized the No. 46 pick in this year’s NBA Draft on Amari Williams. The Nottingham, England, native spent the first four years of his collegiate career at Drexel before taking his talents to the University of Kentucky.

Wildcats head coach Mark Pope couldn’t wait to insert the seven-foot center with a pterodactyl-like seven-foot-five wingspan into his lineup to patrol the pivot.

Flashing a smile, Pope glowingly told Forbes of his initial assessment of Williams’ game upon arriving in Lexington, “We loved him. We loved his defensive prowess. His work on the glass was exceptional. His rim-protection capability was great. He’s the three-time Defensive Player of the Year [in the Coastal Athletic Association].

“So all those things. His athleticism and size, his physicality, were all really important to us. And then, the unique feature of him that fit us so well was his ability to pass the ball. Elite level passer, elite level playmaker, has the personality and the desire to be a great, great passing big, and he certainly proved to be that.”

Williams’s facilitating capabilities have already been on display at Summer League.

On the heels of getting drafted, he joined the rest of the Celtics’ draft class, Hugo Gonzalez and Max Shulga, in helping conduct a youth basketball clinic at a renovated court unveiling at a YMCA in the greater Boston Area.

There, he shared the combination that cultivated his playmaking prowess.

“A lot of people are saying [that] by playing soccer growing up, that was my first sport, and [by] not hitting a growth spurt until late,” said Williams. “I feel like those two things helped my skill set, and something that’s helped me get to this level.”

As for what his passing and the ability to play through him unlocked for Coach Pope’s offense, he conveyed how crucial it was for the Wildcats to have someone of his talent in that role.

“Well, that’s the way we play,” said Pope. “We’re very much a point-center organization. We’ll turn the game inside-out and we love to have our bigs be decision makers, whether it’s in a five-out offense, whether it’s in a trail kind of into a flow zoom offense, whether it’s having them be the playmaker out of a short roll or the Bull’s head post or we put the ball in our five man’s hands so that he could be a playmaker. And Amari allowed us to do all of those things.”

When it mattered most, Kentucky leaned on Williams

“He was such an elite-level guy,” voiced Pope. “In fact, he saved us. We spent the last two months of the season without our starting point guard, our backup point guard, and our third-string point guard, who was our starting two. We lost all of them. And so Amari had this massive burden of kind of righting the ship. We saved ourselves by putting the ball in his hands.

“He was breaking the press off the bounce. He was leading the break off the bounce. We could use him as a pressure release to get the ball out of somebody else’s hands early in a possession, so we could be settled with him starting the play. I can’t overstate the importance of the impact that he had on our season.”

That ability to grab a rebound and push the ball up the floor, or initiate a transition attack, matters more than ever. The game now operates at a breakneck pace. Williams’s new team, the Celtics, is determined to play at a faster tempo with greater regularity.

“It’s an incredible luxury,” expressed Pope. “It also allows you to take elite-level scorers, it allows you to take them, and instead of them being on the ball to start a possession, you could get them away from the ball and let them use some actions coming back to the ball early in a possession, early in the clock. So, the point guard doesn’t have to give up the ball and get it back. He can start with it out of his hands, or a two guard, or a shooting guard, or a scoring guard can start with it out of his hands.

“Amari can do that work of getting the ball down the floor, and then they can be the first one to come back to it in a scoring position. I think it affords coaches an incredible luxury, with how to rethink the game, which is what we’re seeing in the league all the time anyway, right? There are so many bigs that are handling.”

Kentucky’s head coach also shared that where Williams grew the most in his year in “The Blue Grass State” was the evolution of his standout trait.

“I just think he became incredibly — he was used as a play initiator before he got here, but him being a guy that was actually fueling the entire offense, he was the director of the orchestra for us, and so I thought he grew there exponentially.”

A look into Amari Williams’s competitive character

The Wildcats boast a blue-blood men’s basketball program with a rich tradition and a history of winning.

No Division I program has more wins [2,422]. No school has had more NBA Draft selections than Kentucky’s 140. That includes three No. 1 overall picks. The Wildcats’ eight national championships are the second most in NCAA men’s basketball history behind UCLA’s 11.

While many NBA stars first showcased their talents in Lexington, Williams utilized his one year there to etch his name into the program’s history books.

“You think about what he did; this is the University of Kentucky,” said Coach Pope. “I mean, we’re talking about A.D. [Anthony Davis] and KAT [Karl Anthony-Towns], and a billion others, right? And for him to be a record-setting guy, he’s the first big ever to have a triple-double in the history of the University of Kentucky, which is just staggering when you think about the talent there. And he did it in SEC play on the road with the way the SEC was this year.

“So, just his everyday approach. He never missed a single rep of a single practice or a single game the entire season, was just incredibly reliable, and carried himself like a beautiful vet.”

The plan is for Williams to start his NBA career on a two-way deal. He’ll divide his time between Boston and the organization’s G League affiliate in Maine.

As he strives for a standard NBA contract and to carve out his place in the league, Coach Pope detailed where Williams needs to improve to stick at the next level.

“On the offensive side of the ball, being a finisher. That’s a part of the game where he’s really growing. He has some real potential. I think he really grew in terms of his junk game, his kind of 10-foot-and-in creative shot-making game. I think he really grew there. So, I think that’s a space.

“I think he’s got the potential to be an elite-level defensive player switching one through five. And he certainly showed a lot of signs for that and did that well for us in important moments.

“I think that’s going to be important for him to continue growing and just learning the NBA game. We play, very much, an NBA style. But there’s nothing like actually being in the mix.”

A glimpse into Amari Williams the person

The Celtics put a premium on their culture. It has a significant influence on who they bring into their work environment. When asked for insight into who Amari Williams is off the court and who the franchise is getting as a person, Coach Pope gushed over his high-charactered former center.

“He is unbelievable. You talk about a guy who cares about all the right things. He’s incredibly protective of his teammates. He loves his teammates. He would take a bullet for his guys, and that’s not a cliche. That’s actually deep in his heart. Like, it matters. His locker room matters to him. His guys, his staff, they matter to him. And so he’s going to be a welcome addition in the locker room.

“He is a culture guy. He’s soft-spoken. He’s incredibly unassuming. He is willing to do whatever it takes for a team to be successful and win. He doesn’t ask to bring any attention to himself ever. He is a perfect teammate in that sense.”