Here’s Charlotte Hornets power forward Grant Williams on embracing being a veteran leader for the young players.
(via Charlotte Hornets):
Reporter: “You’ve seen a lot of team bonding activities over the offseason, how has that been to get everyone on the same page as you guys head into camp?”
Williams: “It’s really special. It’s unique. You don’t see that normally in the pros. That’s something that I haven’t really been around or experienced in the 5 years that I’ve been in the league. You can tell the organization’s commitment to making this team not only better from a personal perspective, but as men as we grew. We’ve been able to share stories, been able to talk about our season outlook, talk about our roles, and what we want to be for this upcoming year. I think that is really, really encouraging because we do have a lot of young players, and as a veteran on the team, it’s my job to push them and compete with them because they want to be special in this league. Same way I looked back to when I was 3 years ago and I was fighting for a contract in Boston, and my vets did the same.
“I remember Al [Horford] and guys like that really pushing forward and just showing me whether it’s not even through words, just their day-to-day commitment to not only how they take care of their bodies, how they take care of their mental, how they take care of their physical approach, coming in every day shooting after practice, shooting before practice. That’s something that I’m trying to do the same of: use less talk, and more action. It’s been really special to be a part of and I’m super excited to help these guys not only accomplish their dreams in playing, but also accomplish their dreams to get paid for their families. So, I’m super excited moving forward.”
