Gus Williams and The Holdout

There are a thousand marvelous stories in 40 years of Sonic history; stories of achievement, delirium, and glory; stories of frustration, betrayal, and despair. But few stories match the one of Gus Williams and The Holdout.

It almost seems impossible in retrospect. An all-star guard, a legitimate superstar, an NBA champion, holding out for all of preseason, then all fall, through Christmas and New Years Day, past Valentine's Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Passover … through every marker of time you could imagine. Gus Williams - crucial aspect of Seattle's basketball soul - gone.

The acrimonious story of Williams' fight with owner Sam Schulman has been told many times (one of my favorite bits: Williams supposedly earned six figures during his holdout year due to pay he was still receiving from the Golden State Warriors and endorsements from Nike and Mello Yello. Yes, Mello Yello). Essentially, Williams, backed by agent Howard Slusher (playing the role Scott Boras, I suppose) wanted the security of a five-year deal, and he wanted $700,000 a year on top of that. Schulman balked, offered fewer years and fewer dollars, and then dared Williams to hold out.

Williams did, and eventually won, as the Sonics imploded without their superstar guard. Schulman, faced with the possibility of marketing a new cable television deal without his best player, caved in and gave Williams everything he wanted. (Among the perks: an annuity that would pay Williams $250,000 a year for the rest of his life, starting at age 38, an inheritance of $2 million to his heirs, a Rolls Royce, and some real estate holdings).

At the time, most of the discussion centered around how much it hurt the Sonics to be without Williams' services for the year, but I've never heard anyone talk about how Williams' holdout hurt his career, or at least how his career has been viewed in retrospect. Is it possible that by holding out, Gus Williams cost himself a shot at the Hall of Fame?


First, let's look at Williams' numbers as they stand. With 14,000 points, 4,600 assists, and 1,600 steals the Wizard is in clear Hall of Very Good territory. If you list all the guards in NBA history with 13,000 points, 4,000 assists and 1,500 steals, you come up with 15 players (see chart), and Williams is clearly at the bottom of that list.

(It's important to point out that steals were not counted by the NBA until the 1973-74 season, which obviously truncates the amount of history at which we can look; of course everyone with more than 30 points or a year spent in Boston prior to 1974 is already in the Hall of Fame, so that point is mostly moot.)

Now, it's not a list of lousy players, by any means. But if you sort the players by their career win shares, there is a clear demarcation between those at the top (Jordan, Stockton, Miller, Payton, Magic, Bryant) and those at the bottom (Derek Harper, Rod Strickland, Terry Porter). Not to mention that even with that demarcation Williams is almost in a further subbasement with 68 WS, 12 below Isiah Thomas and 18 below Strickland.

Clearly, as it stands, Gus Williams is not a hall of famer. While his win shares are reasonably close to Thomas', he had half as many assists and 4,000 fewer points (not to mention the lack of two rings), indicating he's obviously not in the same ballpark as Zeke.

But what if The Wizard had played in 1980-81? What then?

Fortunately, Gus' career stats are remarkably consistent, especially for that brief period, making it somewhat easy to create a hypothetical season. It's important to note that the Sonics were without Dennis Johnson that season as well, indicating that Williams' assist totals would have increased compared to the previous season when DJ (and John Johnson, for that matter) were handling the passing duties.