A former 5-star McDonald\u2019s All-American with an elastic wingspan, a 41.5% clip from three-point land in his freshman season at Colorado, and stardom in his DNA, Williams was a great proposition at that point in the draft. In theory, he was a low-danger prospect dredged from a draft pool of filth.<\/p>\n
In practice, however, it took no time at all for Jazz fans to wallow in the melancholy of a rebuild apparently prolonged for yet another season.<\/p>\n
He was incredibly disappointing in his first two years with the Jazz, posting stat lines that should be buried in the archives, far away from the eyes of impressionable, vulnerable youth.<\/p>\n
Cody Williams Rookie Stats:<\/p>\n
21.6 minutes
4.6 points
1.2 assists
2.3 rebounds
0.5 steals
0.3 blocks
0.9 turnovers
32.3% FG
25.9% 3PT<\/p>\n
Cody Williams Sophomore Stats:<\/p>\n
24.3 minutes (+2.7)
8.8 points (+4.2)
2.0 assists (+0.8)
3.0 rebounds (+0.7)
0.8 steals (+0.3)
0.4 blocks (+0.1)
1.1 turnovers (+0.2)
46.8% FG (+14.5%)
21.4% 3PT (-4.5%)<\/p>\n
Williams isn\u2019t the worst basketball player ever, nor should he be treated as a villain or disease that must be eradicated. I tend to exaggerate for effect.<\/p>\n
In fact, I have long been a supporter of Williams. Call it homerism, blind optimism, or poor player evaluation skills, but I still believe that there\u2019s a world in which Williams develops into a good or even great piece of a competitive team.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s still only 21 years old. And though the \u201cyoung = good\u201d fallacy is still prevalent in NBA circles, I still believe that given the right training and plenty of patience, Cody Williams has the potential to be an effective NBA-level player. Patience runs thin at the highest level of basketball, and the Jazz apparently burned through their supply when they dealt Williams for a role player and a stack of bills.<\/a><\/p>\n The Jazz saw him in practice. They saw him in games. They had seen enough, and they quit on the second lottery pick of the post-Gobert-Mitchell era just seven months after trading Taylor Hendricks.<\/p>\n The key difference between the Hendricks and Williams trades? Hendricks played a key role in bringing Jaren Jackson Jr. \u2014 a multiple-time All-Star and former Defensive Player of the Year \u2014 to Utah. Williams yielded Josh Green, a player suspected to be little more than a situational outside weapon in the short-term and a tradable contract in the long-term.<\/p>\n Not exactly a resume-builder.<\/p>\n Though it spanned just two seasons, the era of Cody Williams dug up feelings in his supporters akin to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Please allow this article to serve as a therapy session. A moment of safety from the harsh realities of Utah Jazz basketball in the past 24 calendar page flips or so, and a calming gulp of oxygen as we move toward a better future.<\/p>\n SALT LAKE CITY, UT – APRIL 1: Cam Johnson #23 of the Denver Nuggets strips the ball from Cody Williams #5 of the Utah Jazz during the second half of their game at the Delta Center on April 1, 2026 in Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Chris Gardner\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n The Five Stages of Cody Williams<\/p>\n On draft day, Cody Williams was seen as an underwhelming but promising prospect. He has fantastic measurables, standing at 6\u20198\u201d with a 7\u20191\u201d wingspan; he fit comfortably into the archetype of a modern NBA wing. Toss into the mix the fact that Williams hit 41.5% of his three-pointers at Colorado, and it seemed all he needed to transform into a dependable 3-and-D player was a few hundred hours in the weight room.<\/p>\n As unrefined as his game still was, Williams was always going to be a project. Surely, given enough time, he could gain the physicality and ball skills of his older brother, Jalen, right?<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long before Williams\u2019 uninspiring production frustrated Jazz fans, many of whom (Williams\u2019 ride-or-die supporters) clung to denial while the remainder slipped into the second phase.<\/p>\n He was bad as a rookie (dubbed the worst player in the NBA<\/a> by some) and not much better as a sophomore.<\/p>\n He had basically fallen out of Will Hardy\u2019s rotation in the early stages of his sophomore season, never leaving the bench in 5 of the first 14 games of the season. Cody had visibly lost all confidence in his jump shot, and for good reason \u2014 21.4% is an abysmal three-point rate for a wing, and even worse for a player who knocked down a sizzling rate from distance in college.<\/p>\n \u2026On just 1.7 attempts per game. That\u2019s a low sample size that might have been a bit deceptive for Utah\u2019s scouts, considering 41.5% looks much more appealing than 0.7 made three-pointers per game. Now shooting more than that at the NBA level, Williams can\u2019t seem to find the net on open looks (he gets plenty of those).<\/p>\n He just scored 35 points in a G League game \u2014 where is that guy when he suits up for the Jazz?<\/p>\n The Jazz could have just gone the safe route and taken Matas Buzelis. Heck, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski are outplaying Williams, and they were drafted 20 picks later.<\/p>\n It seems the Jazz had been fooled or simply missed in the 2024 NBA Draft lottery.<\/p>\n But he\u2019s not even a real top-10 pick anyway, right? After all, his draft class was atrocious. Remember Zaccharie Risacher? Tijaun Salaun? Reed Sheppard? Rob Dillingham? These were all top-10 picks, and none of them have behaved as such since entering the NBA. The number-one overall pick, Risacher, was unceremoniously traded from Atlanta this offseason, and it wasn\u2019t headline news in the slightest.<\/p>\n When you think about it in this frame of mind, Cody Williams isn\u2019t a true top-10 prospect when compared to prospects typically in his draft range. He\u2019s a project, after all, so it would be unrealistic to expect him to play well in just his second season.<\/p>\n These are the lies we told ourselves. These are the rationalizations we voluntarily internalized to protect ourselves from the truth that we expected more from a lottery pick.<\/p>\n We celebrated every routine positive. Praised him for making the right play on defense or for dunking when he had a gently obstructed runway to the basket. Williams wasn\u2019t what we hoped, so we moved the goalposts to qualify him as a success, even if unknowingly.<\/p>\n In his third year at the Summer League, he was still a non-factor. Look at who AJ Dybantsa has to keep help defense at bay: Tre Johnson and Will Reily have been awesome during the Summer League.<\/p>\n Yet with Darryn Peterson claiming the defense\u2019s attention, and against lesser competition, Cody Williams still shrank. He crept in the shadows. He was timid, cautious, and sickeningly irrelevant on the court.<\/p>\n![\"SALT](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gettyimages-2268841870.jpg\"\/)
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