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Credit: ESPN, Rob Kinnan-Imagn Images
Richard Jefferson and Jay Williams might be friendly off-air, but you could have fooled just about everyone watching the NBA Draft Tuesday night.
No offense to any of the draftees, but the most notable moment of the 2026 NBA Draft occurred after ESPN aired a video of Williams being drafted in 2002. After host Kevin Neghandi asked why the Duke star seemed to receive such a loud ovation from the New York crowd upon being drafted by the Chicago Bulls, Williams noted that most people who go to Duke are from New York and New Jersey. And then Jefferson made things awkward.
“Well, they also didn’t see the future coming, so they were cheering kind of pre-empt — sorry, I apologize,” Jefferson said, not so subtly referencing the fact that Williams’ bright NBA future was derailed one year later by a motorcycle accident.
“Wow,” Williams responded bluntly.
“The guy was an unbelievable talent,” Kenny Smith interjected of Williams before delivering his own blow. “His career trajectory would have been a lot different if he didn’t like motorcycles.
Williams agreed, noting he even tried to beat everyone to the punch by writing an entire book about it. Jefferson, meanwhile, sat back, crossed his legs, and offered an awkward stare at the camera before taking one final jab, “I guess everybody that goes to Duke isn’t that smart.”
It’s been nearly a quarter-century since Williams derailed his NBA career in a 2003 motorcycle accident after his rookie season. And to his credit, Williams has been very open about the incident, referring to it as “the day I almost died” in his book, “Life is not an Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention.”
Williams suffered a fractured pelvis, three torn ligaments in his knee, and severed a nerve in his leg in the June 2003 accident. Additionally, riding a motorcycle violated his contract with the Bulls. Williams attempted several comebacks and had a brief G League stint, but never made it back to the NBA after suffering the crash shortly after his rookie season.
Jefferson loves to inject dry humor on TV, and to Williams’ credit, he took the ribbing about as well as you could have expected. But most people watching agreed it was a little bit awkward.
The post Richard Jefferson awkwardly roasts Jay Williams for self-destructing NBA career appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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