Scott Williams: Yes, I don’t remember exactly what the schedule was. But pretty much my entire college career, I had a bad right shoulder that would sometimes snap during games, and it scared a lot of GMs out of drafting me. they [thought] My shoulders wouldn’t make it through the rigors of the NBA, and then they’d lose another healthy, protective body.
I took it as a slight because I never missed a practice or a game, but fortunately, shortly after the draft, we had [Michael] Jordan He plays at a basketball game in Charlotte, which was about an hour away from Chapel Hill while I was there that summer, and he did for some underprivileged kids that he’d be friends with. Fred Whitfield Collected. I went out of my way to invite him to the game because Jordan would be bringing a lot of his fellow pros and Charlotte Hornets players would come and play and some good local guys would be playing in the game as well.
So Jordan, Carolina’s guy, put me on his team and I got to have a really strong, physical match. Jordan addresses the team and says: [if] You are not here to play a real, physical brand of basketball, there is the door you can leave. It’s funny because all of these guys were professionals, but we don’t get paid for this. It’s just to support him. But that’s what I needed because the guy’s name JR Reid, who was my teammate for three years at North Carolina, was on the other team and gave me a good physical game. This allowed my best talent to show.
I was a player, a defender, and a bullet blocker. So I took a rebound late in the basketball game, rebounded offensively, found Jordan on the right corner and shot him and he dropped what was basically the game winner. As he leaves the arena driving off in his little red Corvette, Fred Whitfield tells the story to a friend he calls Michael Jordan. Jerry Krause, and says you should look at Williams. So Krauss contacted my agent and they gave me an invitation to try out for the Junior Summer Program.