WCS 52: How ‘J-Will’ went from Sactown to overkill

w/: PDX returns to the WNBA + Mo’ Shohei + strike talk @ Eaze

The Kings hadn’t yet gotten good, but I had ESPN: The Magazine to fly me from New York to Sactown anyway.

The idea was to use checking out the ne’er-do-well basketball team and write up a Pacific Division preview item as justification for a weekend of hanging out with fam and old friends.

This was the strike-shortened, 50-game season of 1999. In the preceding turbulent off-season, the Kings picked up former Lakers center Vlade Divac and Hall of Very Good forward Chris Webber, along with underappreciated guard Vernon Maxwell. So, I was actually amped to watch these dudes run.

But when I steered my rental out to Arco Arena, it was two NBA rookies that realized the winning team to come:

Little-known Croatian Peja Stojaković—who shot better than any human I had ever in person watched take long-range shots—and Jason Williams, a swaggy point guard from West Virginia who would gain and lose fame quickly as “White Chocolate.”

At Kings HQ they were not yet calling Jason Williams White Chocolate. Williams’ teammates and the ball boys and trainers and possibly even new coach Rick Adelman referred to dude as J-Will, casually—cool and completely unforced—a perfect detail for my lil preview item.

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PDX cheap weed blows my mind

Spotted this week in Southeast Portland. My source also reports that Oregon cannabis, “just keeps getting better.”

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(Unrelated: My NBA preview for ESPN would not include the scene where I’m interviewing Vlade near the players parking lot, while he smokes a cigarette.)

When I got back to the office at 34th and Madison I typed up my NBA bit, making space to mention the rookies Stojaković and Williams. A clause did indeed say that Williams’ teammates call him J-Will. Within a few days Jason Williams was “J-Will” on the TV side of The Worldwide Leader in Sports. By the end of the month, basically every athlete in possession of discernible swag got tagged with a first initial/abbreviated-last-name moniker.

To me, the development was homogenizing and wack. I regretted even putting the nickname in print.

This episode returned to mind last week, when ESPN-LA announced a new morning radio show. Hopelessly swag-free OC guy Travis Rodgers now has a show with former Ram Demarco Farr, who at his peak had just a fraction of even early Will Smith’s swagger. The show is cringily billed as “T-Rog and D-Farr.” And the regret has come back, in spades.

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Regardless, I am regretting none of my 10 best party-talk fodder selections of the past seven days.

But there’s always tomorrow…

10 Become the Boomer that Robert Reich is

Trump is so relentlessly shitty that tracking the horror is a chore. Props to Reich for creating stickiness from the 45th US President’s immeasurable horribleness. It’s a joy to watch the economist game our tech-entertainment system at a wizened 78 years old.
Robert Reich