How Discipline and Perseverance Shaped Williams' NBA Career

Going into his sixth year in the NBA, Ziaire Williams is one of the players looking to become a long-term piece in Brooklyn’s future. The 6’9 forward has established himself as a defensive asset while continuing to improve his offensive game throughout injuries and roster changes.

Williams grew up in Lancaster, California, about an hour’s drive north of Los Angeles. With both parents serving in the military, it comes as no surprise that Williams is described as a disciplined and humble player. At eight years old, he met his first coach, and like many athletes, that coach came from the same bloodline. 

Ziaire Williams Sr. served in the U.S. Marine Corps for seven years, while his wife, Marquita Fields-Williams, served a combined 14 years in both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. Williams described his household as strict, but one that shaped him into the man he is today.

In an interview with the Brooklyn Nets, Williams described the lengths he and his father went to get on a basketball court.

“We just got it done by any means. A park, elementary schools, whatever the case may be. 6:00 a.m., late nights, he had a crazy work schedule and still always found a way for me to get some training in,” he said. 

Even while being across the country in the Big Apple, Williams finds a way to stay involved in his hometown. For the last four years, he has hosted the Ziaire Williams Basketball camp & 3v3 Tournament held at Eastside High, a school where Williams used to watch basketball games himself. His foundation supports underprivileged youth and provides resources and opportunities as the kids compete. 

His high school career was spent at Notre Dame High School before transferring his senior year to play at Sierra Canyon School. There, he helped the program to a CIF-SS Open Division title and became the No. 7-ranked recruit in the ESPN 100 for the 2020 class.

He also earned a gold medal at the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup with USA Basketball. 

Among other  respected options like UCLA, USC and North Carolina, Williams chose Stanford University to continue his basketball career and ended up breaking the team’s record as the highest-ranked recruit since the ESPN recruiting database was created in 2007. He averaged 10.7 points and 27.9 minutes a game, with 14 starts out of 20 games before entering the 2021 NBA Draft.

Williams was selected as the tenth overall pick by the New Orleans Pelicans but was then traded to the Memphis Grizzlies. In the 2021-2022 season, he appeared in 62 games with 31 starts and played 21.7 minutes per game. 

He missed the first 24 games of the next season due to a right knee injury, but still ended up playing in 37 games. Williams also started in seven games for the Memphis Hustle, the Grizzlies’ G League affiliate, in the 2022-2023 season. 

In his last season with the Grizzlies, he came back to play 51 games while averaging 8.2 points.

Fast forward to the summer of 2024, and Williams was traded to the Brooklyn Nets. This was in addition to a second-round pick and in exchange for Mamadi Diakite and the draft rights to Nemanja Dangubić. 

In his first season with the Nets, Williams put up career highs across the board. Averaging 24.5 minutes across 63 games, his 3-point percentage was 34.1%, while grabbing 4.6 rebounds and ten points when he stepped on the floor.

The franchise was impressed with this performance and re-signed him on a two-year, $12.5 million contract. The 2025-2026 season didn’t prove to be a huge improvement, but he managed to maintain his previous stats in a decreased 56 games, increasing his scoring average slightly to 10.2 points per game. 

Surrounded by a young team, head coach Jordi Fernández is looking for more from Williams, especially on the defensive end. 

“Last year, he was elite in a lot of the things that we care about defensively, from ball pressure to deflections to pick-and-roll defense to defending isolations,” he said in an interview with the New York Post. 

“It’s just about giving an opportunity to somebody else, and for Williams to refocus, to be ready for the next opportunity. And when it comes, then just take it and sustain it and be the best defensive player on the team and one of the best in the NBA, which I believe he’s more than capable of doing.”

Every player on the Nets has a job in the current rebuild, and there is no questioning Williams' potential. But time will tell if he can take his talent and upgrade it to become a key part of the franchise’s future.

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