It’s going to be a few months before we all get to watch Boston Celtics basketball again. As we enter the deadzone of the NBA calendar, I’ve got no choice but to make the most of what we all saw at the NBA Summer League while I still can.
It’s a beautiful time. There’s no other NBA basketball being played. The spotlight is entirely on the rookies, sophomores, and league-adjacent players who take the court in Las Vegas. Naturally, all any of us media folk can do is overreact and draw conclusions from a handful of exhibition games.
Amari Williams Summer League grade: C-
With that being said, let’s take a look at second-year center Amari Williams.
Williams spent the majority of his rookie season up in Maine with the G-League Celtics. There was a lot of hype surrounding his playmaking ability and potential for growth heading into the 2026 summer circuit.
In his first outing… he lived up to it.
The 24-year-old posted a 23-point, 13-rebound double-double with a pair of blocks on the side to help Boston capture an overtime win over the Toronto Raptors. His touch inside of the paint looked sharp as he finished well around the rim and got his mid-paint float shots to fall.Â
Not to mention that Williams made some timely plays, including grabbing the offensive rebound that led to the eventual game-tying three from Chris Cenac Jr., to send the game to an extra five minutes.
The hype train left the station so emphatically that Jack Simone and I had no choice to do a second podcast on the summer league opener, where we brought on our good friend and the No. 1 Amari Williams believer, Nik Land (NikNBA), to properly break down what we’d just seen.Â
And then it got worse.
The sharpness that he’d shown against Toronto completely dissipated, and he struggled to get himself involved the rest of the way.
Williams scored a combined 14 points and grabbed just 15 total rebounds over his next three outings. When watching the penultimate game against the Sacramento Kings, I found myself forgetting that he was even on the floor.
He played nearly 17 minutes in the Summer League finale against the Orlando Magic, who by the way, weren’t playing any of their regulars, and logged just two points and three rebounds.
Disappointing summer league year two for Amari Williams
Not everything comes back to counting stats when discussing impact, but believe me, there wasn’t much going on beyond that.
The fact that he was the lone returning Celtic, aside from John Tonje, even on the court against Orlando tells you all you need to know about how things went for him in Vegas. Playing a meaningless game in front of an empty gym because all of the hype of Summer League has dissipated feels like as clear of a punishment as you can get.
Now, this isn’t to say that Williams’ career should be deemed over, or anything that extreme. Just a year ago, we watched Baylor Scheierman struggle to impress in a similar spot. Scheierman went on to have himself a strong second-half of the 2025-26 season, and even earned a regular rotation spot in Boston.
Williams can still get there, but there weren’t any clear indicators that he’s on his way, unfortunately.
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