Escape From Nets Boosts Williams Toward Real Goals

Buck Williams sat at his new locker in his new world and remembered the anguish of New Jersey Nets basketball the past few years.

“I only wanted to win,” he said. “I always tried to do whatever it took to win. If it means sacrificing my game to win, I was willing to do that. Looking back in hindsight, maybe it was a mistake to sacrifice my game for a losing team.”

But that’s history, a chapter of ugliness that can be slammed shut, because Charles Linwood Williams, known to one and all as Buck before and since he was rebounding at the University of Maryland, has a new life in the Pacific Northwest. The Portland Trail Blazers just want from him what he gave his former employers for eight seasons: rebounding, inside scoring, tough defense.

With Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Kevin Duckworth on the team, the burden is no longer just for Williams, now 29, to bear. Since the championship days of Maurice Lucas, the Trail Blazers have been looking for a power forward. They tried Kermit Washington. Mychal Thompson. Kenny Carr. Caldwell Jones. Cameo appearances by Audie Norris and Peter Verhoeven.

None fit the bill, so Portland swallowed hard June 24, traded its 1989 No. 1 draft pick and oft-injured center Sam Bowie to the Nets, and pronounces itself better for it. The numbers bear it out; feasting 1 on opponents at home, the Trail Blazers have blasted out of the gate, even with Drexler missing time with an injured elbow.

“I just feel very good to be with a real solid franchise,” Williams said, “a franchise that has an opportunity to win a lot of ballgames. This is what I’ve been hoping for for a lot of years.”

He has solidified the starting lineup, averaging 13.6 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. Portland can’t be sure what it will get from the still-inconsistent Duckworth from night to night; thus, Williams has been a godsend.

After Portland beat Detroit by 20 recently, Isiah Thomas was asked about the big difference in this season’s Trail Blazers.

“Buck Williams,” he said.

And what else?

“I said Buck Williams,” the Piston star repeated.

“He’s just such a positive personality on this team, such a professional,” said Coach Rick Adelman, who joined the team in midstream last season. Portland floundered, with Mike Schuler fired after tempests with Drexler, and with Drexler exchanging barbs with his teammates, most notably Kersey. The Trail Blazers were dispatched in the first round of the playoffs by the Lakers after stumbling to a 39-43 regular season. It may have been just as well.

“We didn’t have a real good chemistry on our team last year,” Adelman said, “and I think having a type of personality and the way (Williams) approaches his job and everything has brought that out in guys like Porter and Duckworth and Kersey and Clyde.”

Specifically, that means in training camp last season the Nets asked Williams if he would move to small forward so they could look at Chris Morris. He complied, providing 13.1 points and 9.4 rebounds a game, 11th best in the league. That doesn’t mean he liked the idea.

“Why are you going to have one of the best power forwards in the game playing the (small forward)?” he asked. “I could sense right away that they sort of wanted to go in another direction, which was fine. Regardless of what role I’m going to play I’m going to be effective, and I thought I was effective last year.

“In this kind of business you have to have a clear-cut plan as to how you want to reshape your team into a contender. I don’t think they really had a well-thought-out plan as to where they wanted to go. Year to year we went from one CBA player to the next and you don’t really build a solid franchise going in that direction.”

Once, New Jersey had one of the up-and-coming teams, or so it seemed. Larry Brown was the coach as the Nets won 45-plus games two seasons in a row, with Williams, Albert King, Mike O’Koren, Darryl Dawkins and Mickey Johnson the core. “We were a pretty good team,” said Washington Bullet assistant Bill Blair, an assistant coach in New Jersey at the time. “At one time we had the fourth-best record in the league.”

That kind of chemistry has been missing from the Nets for some time, as New Jersey has gone through a slew of has-beens and never-wases on the court, behind the bench and in the front office. One of the few constants was Williams.

“Once they get some players there they keep for a certain amount of years, core players, they’d be able to win,” he said. “But we never got to a point where we had core players. When we did, we won, with Micheal Ray Richardson, Darryl Dawkins. We were together for two or three years and we won. You just can’t throw all these different combinations in talentwise and expect everything to blend.”

It rankled him that there were whispers around the league last season that Williams was on the downhill side. Last season was the first in which he hadn’t scored more than 1,000 points and his rebound total was his lowest by 138.

But Williams contends things aren’t always as they seem.

“The emphasis on our team was shifted from me to some of the other players,” he said. “I didn’t get the ball as much and I just wasn’t as involved as I had been in the past. Last year I thought I had a good season You would see it was a situation where I wasn’t involved that much.”

The Trail Blazers had been trying for the better part of two years to get Williams, and when the Nets decided to take a chance on Bowie, Portland figured Williams would be worth the 12th pick overall, which turned out to be guard Mookie Blaylock.

But Blaylock isn’t going to lead New Jersey to a title this season, or in the near future. Williams could help Portland, as talented as any team in the Western Conference, make a big step to challenge the Lakers and the Suns and the Jazz and all the upper echelon.

Said Porter: “We did get rid of most of the turmoil situation we had last year with Kiki (Vandeweghe, traded to New York))and certain players against each other, saying they weren’t getting enough playing time. This year we’ve got guys who understand their roles for the most part and are willing to wait and contribute at the time called on them.”

These Trail Blazers have rookies Byron Irvin and Cliff Robinson, along with import Drazen Petrovic, and all of a sudden they have good depth. Add in Williams with the other starting four and Portland should make noise.

That’s what Williams had been waiting for, on the island of mediocrity in the Meadowlands.

“This gives him a chance to be on what he considers a good team and a team that has a chance to win,” Adelman said. “I think he really kind of got a new lease on life, but he’s given it to us too. He’s given that to some of the other guys on our team. They feel like this is a different team now. This is not the same group that finished last year.”

Said Williams: “It was kind of frustrating at times. But it really broadened my horizons as a player, kind of stretched my game offensively and defensively. One thing about playing on a losing team is all your weaknesses are exposed . . . it forced me to be a more well-rounded player. It kind of stretched my fortitude, my maturity, so to speak. I think if I can play under those conditions I can play under any conditions now.”