Bullets’ Williams Faces Tough Rehabilitation

John Williams twice has watched the tape of the Washington Bullets’ game with the Utah Jazz at the Capital Centre Dec. 2. When it reaches the point where his right knee pops and he crumples to the floor in pain, it is still almost impossible for the Bullets power forward to fathom.

“It was just a freak accident,” said Williams, who was viewed as the cornerstone of the Bullets’ rebuilding plans, “but it has put my whole life on hold.”

During halftime of Saturday’s 102-88 loss to the Boston Celtics, Williams talked to the media for the first time since the injury that required surgery to repair his medial collateral ligament and will keep him sidelined until at least late February.

The mental anguish of watching his team dropping out of playoff contention has been almost as tough to take as the physical pain as he begins his rehabilitation work, he said. Williams has seen the Bullets (13-19) play only twice at home.

“They need my support, but it just gets very frustrating watching them lose and knowing I can’t help,” he said. “Even when I’m watching on television, it’s too painful to watch a whole game.”

Williams’ immediate problem, though, is dealing with the uncertainty of whether he will be able to resume his promising basketball career.

“The injury was like a hard slap in my face,” he said. “I’ve never been seriously hurt before -- high school, college or pro. But I knew I had done something bad to the knee as soon as I went down. We had a big crowd that night, and I could still hear a tearing sound over the crowd noise.”

Surgery only heightened his fears.

“I know great players like (the Bullets’) Bernard King and (the Los Angeles Clippers’) Danny Manning have come back from surgery and played well,” Williams said. “It sounds good, but you have to go through a lot of pain to make it back. I’ve talked to Bernard about it several times, and he told me it will require a lot of hard work.”

King’s injury, when he was a member of the New York Knicks in 1985, was considered more severe. He missed 185 games after surgery that almost totally reconstructed his right knee.

Most National Basketball Association teams, including the Knicks, believed he never again would be a first-line player, but King, 33, a fierce competitor and self-motivator, averaged 20.7 points for the Bullets last season and, after a slow start this year, has boosted his average to 19.1.