The legendary Grant Williams of Tennessee basketball was moved on Thursday to the Charlotte Hornets, his hometown team.
The 6-foot-6 power forward was playing for the Dallas Mavericks for the first time. Williams played against forward PJ Washington at Kentucky before joining the Vols, and now Dallas is sending him, Seth Curry, and a first-round draft selection to the Hornets.
For the Mavericks this season, Williams averaged 8.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.7 assists. Of his 47 appearances, 33 were as a starter.
The Boston Celtics selected Williams, a two-time SEC Player of the Year at Tennessee, with the 22nd pick overall in the 2019 NBA Draft. Prior to being signed as a free agent by the Mavericks, he spent four seasons as a player for the Celtics. Williams inked a four-year, $54 million contract with Dallas.
Williams qualified for the NBA Finals by winning the Eastern Conference Finals three times while playing for the Boston Celtics. The Warriors defeated Boston in six games to win the Finals. During the 2021–22 season, Williams averaged 7.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, and one assist in 24.4 minutes per game.
Williams graduated with a three-star rating from Charlotte, North Carolina’s Providence Day School. Between 2016 and 2019, he was a player at Tennessee, where he spent three seasons, starting 101 of his 104 games. As a junior, he averaged 18.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 3.2 assists during the longest run of Tennessee’s school history as the top-ranked team in the nation. In 2019, Williams was named unanimously to the First Team All-American.
Williams averaged 15.2 points, six rebounds, and 1.9 assists as a sophomore when he led the Vols to the SEC regular-season championship.