March 5, 2026, 1:45 a.m. ET
BOSTON — When Grant Williams was with the Boston Celtics, he was almost the class clown of the roster. He’d cheer up talented teammates such as superstar forward turned friend Jayson Tatum and goof off away from the court, like when he fielded questions during a press conference while dressed as Batman.
Sometimes those antics would reach the court as well, occasionally to the Celtics’ chagrin, as it’s hard to forget when his jawing with former Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler ignited a devastating Heat run in Game 2 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals. Two months after that series loss to Miami, Williams landed with the Dallas Mavericks as part of a sign-and-trade. He played just 47 games there before getting moved again at the 2024 trade deadline, this time to the floundering Charlotte Hornets.
That would’ve been a tough transition for most players, yet Williams has made the most of it. And despite suffering an ACL tear early in the 2024-25 season, the 27-year-old hasn’t lost his sense of humor since leaving the Celtics — he simply gained some valuable experience that helped him evolve in Charlotte.
“I give a lot of credit to my time here in Boston, because it allowed me to make mistakes,” he told Celtics Wire in the tunnels of TD Garden on Wednesday night prior to the first meeting of the season between the Celtics and Hornets. “It allowed me to be that young, sporadic, competitive, but also crazy, young player, and I think that has allowed me to step into this role with a lot more security and confidence.”
Although he was once a young jokester with the Celtics, Williams is now a veteran leader with the Hornets, who roster just one player over the age of 28.
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“Sometimes, it’s funny, the difference between coming here in Boston and you say a couple words and everyone yells at you to shut the hell up, but now everyone tells you to talk more,” he joked of the difference between his early years with the Celtics and present place with the Hornets. “And it’s kind of cool to see things change as time has gone on.”
The Hornets were once the face of immaturity in the league, but Williams has aided in the removal of that reputation. Of course, they’re still young, as their top three scorers at the moment include 23-year-old Brandon Miller, rookie Kon Knueppel, and 24-year-old LaMelo Ball.
Yet, they’re no longer the harmless babies of the league who can be underestimated, which the Celtics found out on Wednesday night during a 118-89 defeat. The Beantown beatdown marked the Hornets’ first victory in Boston in more than four years and their sixth win in a row — enough for the longest active winning streak in the NBA.
“Today wasn’t characteristic of us, that wasn’t Celtic basketball,” Celtics star Jaylen Brown said amongst a quiet locker room following Boston’s most lopsided loss of the season. “They had more energy than us. That hasn’t happened a lot all season long. Today was not the best example of Celtic basketball, and we all can be better. And being a leader, I take accountability.”
While Williams didn’t participate in the blowout due to injury management on the second night of a back-to-back, the Hornets are a stellar 14-5 this season when he’s on the floor. In his last outing, he notched 12 points in 21 minutes during a 117-90 win over the Dallas Mavericks and Hornets head coach Charles Lee, who spent time with the Celtics as an assistant coach, later lauded him for helping his team up their physicality as the playoffs approach.
“I think that he was pretty spot on about where we could clean things up, where we can get better,” Lee said prior to the Hornets’ upset of the Celtics. “And I think that this group has shown that they are willing to accept that feedback, and they usually act on it pretty quick.”
Even though Williams may have been told to pipe down — mostly jokingly and perhaps sometimes seriously — when he first offered feedback to his Celtics teammates, he learned in Boston that he could truly become a vital part of an NBA locker room.
“I always just think that the building of relationships helps, too,” Williams said of developing his leadership qualities. “When I was here in Boston, I always said that these guys are my closest friends at the time, especially in my young, early career.”
With this ability to forge basketball bonds in mind, Williams realized he could potentially gel anywhere, even within a Hornets culture that is very different from what he was used to.
“(Being in Boston) allowed me to then be more confident in myself to understand that, ‘Yeah, this is a good environment, but this also can be somewhere else,'” Williams explained. “And having that ability to take that next step elsewhere, and make those new relationships, get to know other people, having confidence in not just myself, but the relationships I have and interactions.”
Over the course of Charlotte’s sixth straight double-digit win, Williams could be seen cheering on his teammates from the sidelines and getting out of his seat to celebrate every time the Hornets did something exceptional.
He behaved similarly in Boston, rooting on Tatum, Brown, and other talented Celtics when he wasn’t sharing the floor with them and selflessly supplementing them when he was.
But just because Williams is still the same supportive, goofy role player he was in Boston doesn’t mean he hasn’t grown as a person, teammate, and vocal leader.
“If you see the Grant Williams of today versus the Grant Williams when I was 20 years old, when I first got here, I’d be able to tell you a lot of different things,” he said with a smile.
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