Shawne Williams

L.A. Lakers - Xavier Henry, Shawne Williams, Ryan Kelly and Kendall Marshall: In the midst of his breakout season, Henry is guaranteed to survive, and despite his usual inconsistencies, Williams has done enough (5.0 ppg, 4.9 rpg) to do so too. Kelly has barely played for the big league club, but has been one of the best players in the D-League thus far, as has the much improved-shooting Marshall, who also now has the benefit of being the Lakers's only healthy point guard. All four may survive.

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So saturated can this market be, however, that anyone can benefit. And even non-competitive teams have done so this summer. The Wizards may have facilitated their playoff push with the overly maligned Al Harrington, who if he can have a clean run of health, surely won’t have lost his ability to score. The Mavericks might have done it twice – in addition to the redeemable Blair, they also returned Devin Harris, whose star may have long burned out but who nevertheless will be one of the better backup point guards in the league. And the Lakers might have done it more than twice – Nick Young, Jordan Farmar, and even Shawne Williams have higher talent levels than their price tags indicate.

In some additional related bookkeeping, the reason for many of the players listed in the previous list was due to the NBA's contract guarantee date. All players on NBA rosters on or after January 10th have their contracts guaranteed for the remainder of the season (future seasons are unaffected); this also includes waivers. In-season waivers are 48 hours long and do not include weekends; therefore, with the 10th of January being a Monday, players had to be waived by close of business on Wednesday 5th in order to have cleared waivers before the deadline date.

Eleven players with not fully guaranteed contracts were waived in the hours before that deadline: Steve Novak, Damien Wilkins, Jarron Collins, John Lucas III, Ime Udoka, Lester Hudson, Ronald Dupree, Brian Skinner, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Sundiata Gaines and Rodney Carney. Twenty seven unguaranteed players survived; Delonte West, Von Wafer, Brian Scalabrine, Samardo Samuels, Manny Harris, Alonzo Gee, Brian Cardinal, Melvin Ely, Gary Forbes, Jeremy Lin, Ish Smith, A.J. Price, Ike Diogu, Luc Richard Mbah A Moute, Ben Uzoh, Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, Shawne Williams, Malik Allen, Garret Siler, Patty Mills, Sean Marks, Darnell Jackson, Chris Quinn, Sonny Weems, Jeremy Evans, Cartier Martin and Hamady Ndiaye. Players with contracts who had already become guaranteed due to specific guarantee stipulations in their contracts were Sherron Collins, Derrick Brown, Josh McRoberts, Willie Warren, Derrick Caracter, Luther Head and Joey Dorsey.

Williams is here because Knicks president Donnie Walsh is the one who brought him into this world. It was he who drafted him back in 2006, he who saw more in him than anyone else. Therefore, it stands to reason that he's the one who wants more out of Williams than anyone else; many others have already had enough. In the last four years, Williams has been arrested many times, fallen way out of shape, barely played, played badly, not improved, and been cut for being a cancerous presence when he wasn't even with the team in question. While he showed talent in his Memphis days, it was more potential than actual production, potential which he's done nothing with since. Shawne has reportedly lost a ton of weight in anticipation of this comeback attempt, which is a start, yet he may have already burned his final bridge. He was never good enough to get away with all this.

Shawne Williams

After thee unsuccessful years, Williams fell out of the league in January. Dallas knew they had made a mistake in trading for him, and knew they'd compounded that mistake by exercising his fourth year team option without doing their homework on his play and personality; rather than compound that mistake by waiving Williams to open up a roster spot for Jake Voskuhl, they kept him on the roster (but away for the team) until they could find somewhere to salary dump him. New Jersey became that team, and the Najera/Humphries/Williams trade saved Dallas about $3 million in luxury tax payments. Rather that than Jake Voskuhl.

Williams didn't play for either the Mavericks or the Nets, and did not sign elsewhere after being waived. On January 13th, Williams turned himself onto authorities to face four charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture/deliver/sell, and four charges of conspiracy to manufacture/deliver/sell a controlled substance (specifically, codeine). As far as I can tell from online court records, Williams was sentenced to a diversionary program. Nonetheless, his NBA career is almost certainly over, and four years in, he still doesn't have a basketball career to call his own. It's been nothing but bad stuff so far.

- Shawne Williams

As mentioned in the previous post, Williams fell out of the league in January. Dallas knew they had made a mistake in trading for him, and knew they'd compounded that mistake by exercising his fourth year team option without doing their homework on his play and personality; rather than compound that mistake by waiving Williams to open up a roster spot for Jake Voskuhl, they kept him on the roster (but away for the team) until they could find somewhere to salary dump him. New Jersey became that team, and the Najera/Humphries/Williams trade saved Dallas about $3 million in luxury tax payments. Rather that than Jake Voskuhl.

Williams didn't play for either the Mavericks or the Nets, and did not sign elsewhere after being waived. On January 13th, Williams turned himself onto authorities to face four charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture/deliver/sell, and four charges of conspiracy to manufacture/deliver/sell a controlled substance (specifically, codeine). As far as I can tell from online court records, Williams was sentenced to a diversionary program. Nonetheless, his NBA career is almost certainly over, and four years in, he still doesn't have a basketball career to call his own. It's been nothing but bad stuff so far.