Mo Williams has been on a roller coaster of a career.
Just when he thinks he has figured things out, the NBA throws him a bit of a curve ball.
The latest curve ball came when Williams went from bad team to the Clippers with a chance to play alongside Blake Griffin. Then Chris Paul came and Chauncey Billups came and Williams was pushed to the bench. He was still on a great team though and still playing extremely well — 14.1 points per game, 47.6 percent shooting from the field and a career-best 18.4 PER so far this year.
But that has not left Williams feeling great about his future in Los Angeles. Williams has a player option for next year and is looking ahead to his future in free agency.
And it is an uncertain future considering where Williams has been and how he has played so far this year.
“I just want to know where I stand with the Clippers,” Williams told T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times. “If you have a girlfriend and she tells you she loves you every day, obviously you know she loves you. The way they tell you they love you every day is by signing you to a contract extension.”
Williams’ hesitancy has something to do with his role, Simers seems to suggest. Williams is not feeling the love from Vinny Del Negro and the rest of the Clippers right now. Williams played 35 minutes in the first game since Billups’ injury and made just two of his 10 shot attempts. It was a sub-par game considering the rest of his season thus far.
Williams has just always sought the right role for him. The former All Star certainly can fit in somewhere as a starter. But, of course he isn’t a first option as his time in Milwaukee proved. He isn’t the Scottie Pippen-type sidekick as his time in Cleveland proved.
This year’s numbers suggest that he is a sixth man and that is the role best suited to his scoring ability. But Williams does not seem satisfied with that role. He has been a full-time starter for pretty much his entire career.
He thought he found something when the Cavaliers traded him to the Clippers. That opportunity seems to have passed with Paul’s addition and plans to sign J.R. Smith or another shooting guard to replace Billups. Williams is once again lost in the fold.
What will the market be like for Williams this summer? What role will he want?
It still seems like he wants to be a Clipper. But it does not feel he is completely happy with what that could mean. I guess only Mo Williams knows where he will go next.
The hope, as Simers writes, is that Williams will not bring the Clippers down with him as he looks for a role he can live with.
