He appeared in every playoff game that year for the Celtics, averaging 6.3 points and 3.2 assists, until he was ejected in Game 4 of the Finals for scuffling with LA’s Kurt Rambis. Williams did not play again (coach’s decision) as the Lakers went on to win the series in six games.
‘I’m desperate, man’
Two years later, Williams was out of the NBA and hurtling toward financial ruin. By 1994, he was in a New Jersey bankruptcy court, having lost his home, his marriage, and nearly his life.
“I was so stressed out that I thought about suicide,’’ he said.
Instead, he set out for Florida. Trying to start over, Williams secured a grant from the Legends Foundation. But he lost the money, court records indicate, when the widow of a condominium owner who agreed to a lease-to-own contract with Williams opted out of the contract after the owner died.
Broke again, Williams repeatedly tried in vain to hold jobs. Hindered by his diabetes, which was diagnosed three years ago, he lost or walked away from jobs as a cleaner, handyman, high school girls’ basketball coach, bakery worker, and golf course groundskeeper. In 2005, he filed again for bankruptcy.
Transient since then, Williams has bounced from one friend’s house to another’s, from one shelter to another. He finally ran out of friends to stay with, soured on the shelter life, and settled a couple of months ago in his car. He also owns a ’97 Chevy Tahoe but needs to pay a repair shop $550 to release it.
He has no health insurance or car insurance. And he already has tapped his NBA pension, he said.
“I’m desperate, man,’’ said Williams, who as captain of the 1980-81 Knicks was at times the toast of Broadway. “I’m selling everything I have left just to survive.’’
An avid fisherman, he has sold or pawned his best rods and reels. His golf clubs are for sale. But most of the rest of his belongings were auctioned off after he fell behind on a storage bill.
Williams also is running out of friends and relatives to ask for help. He said his brother, Gus, sometimes sends him food money. But he said Gus, who declined to be interviewed, is coping with his own financial problems.
Williams also is reluctant to turn again to Glenn, Bennett, and others who have supported him, including Mike Woodson, the former Hawks coach who played with Williams on the Knicks.
“It’s hard to keep imposing on friends when you don’t have some kind of solution to your problem,’’ Williams said.
Nor can he turn to his former agent, Fred Slaughter, who once loaned him money.
“Ray was always a good person, a good player, and a good client,’’ Slaughter said. “But was the loan repaid? No. So I just raised my eyebrows and moved on down the road.’’
Williams has never been arrested. But the deeper he falls into despair, he said, the more he prays not to break the law to make ends meet.
“If I didn’t have faith, I probably would have done something drastic by now, something I would regret for a long time,’’ he said. “I know what the devil wants me to do, to turn to crime or drugs, or anything to destroy my faith.’’
He said he needs to get back on his feet and become a productive NBA retiree, a man with a purpose.
“I’m not trying to sit on my butt,’’ he said. “I just need someone to reach out and help me.’’
Bob Hohler can be reached at hohler@globe.com.
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