Exclusive Season Interview w/ Disappointed Jawad Williams

After a breathtaking season debut, scoring 23 points and grabbing 5 rebounds for Hapoel Jerusalem on February 28th, Jawad Williams' season in the Holy Land looked promising, both for himself and his organization. Yet, to the surprise of the former Tar Heel, and the majority of the Israeli basketball world, Williams' season was unexpectedly going one way and-fast-downhill.

'I have no idea what I did to coach Oded to deserve this kind of behavior,' a frustrated Williams said in an exclusive interview with 'Eurobasket.com', speaking about his season for the first time. 'I never had an argument with him or anything of the sort. I didn't do anything personal to him either. All I want to know now is what did I do wrong?' added the forward.

Despite having what is arguably the most talented roster in Jerusalem history, including two former NBA starters, 3 Israeli league champions and several national athletes, Jerusalem lost last night 98:80, in the semi-finals to Israeli defending champions, Galil/Gilboa, ending their season without a single title. 'One part of this season's failure is that we didn't accomplish our goal which was making the finals; the other part is that we had too many player-coach problems that we suffered from,' commented Williams, who added that after four months in Israel he 'still doesn't understand the coach's system.'

'We spent valuable time changing our offense for the semi-finals only to then not use any of it. We had practiced isolation plays for both Brain Randle and myself, only for me to then check in the game for the first in the fourth quarter,' added the aggravated player, who only wants to know what he did wrong.

'Of course. I was never at a place where Americans don't play. Usually it's the locals who have problems with playing time but this situation I'm in is a first for me.'

A disappointed Williams had started the 2010/11 season playing in his home town for the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, averaging 4ppg in 14 minutes of court time over 26 games. 'It's one thing if I'm sitting on the end of the bench in the NBA playing behind Lebron James but I'm not, I'm in Israel. You can't tell me that I could play for three years in the best league in the world and then not play at all in Israel,' Williams logically assumed.

The talented and experienced forward who added depth and skills to Jerusalem's squad, would be benched for the greater part of the red's season. Williams himself was not the only one confused with his situation, as many athletes around the league were interested in knowing more about Williams' condition. An anonymous player told 'Eurobasket.com', 'I don't understand why Jawad doesn't play. He is a proven NBA player and one of the greatest threats on court this league has. Every team wants him on their roster and yet he is benched.'

'Truthfully, I don't know why coach didn't play me, I really have no clue. After the last film session we had of the regular season, coach came to me and said he was sorry for not playing me a number of times. He used the excuse of saying that it wasn't the right moment to play me and he'd promise that I would get my chance,' Jawad said.