Derrick Williams signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv and The Sports Rabbi spoke to him a few years ago while he was making his Euroleague debut with Bayern Munich. Below are two of his comments that are relevant as he heads to Israel for the 2021/22 season.

Friends with Omri Casspi:
“He’s an amazing guy. I have nothing bad to say about that guy. He’s been an unbelievable teammate, unbelievable person and an unbelievable friend. I actually went after that season (2014/15) ended to Israel to vacation out there and stayed for 4-5 days to hang out with him and his people. It’s all about the relationships you build through basketball and around the world. I didn’t think that one day I’d be in Israel hanging out with Casspi. But that’s the best thing about basketball; it takes you to places you’d never think you would be. He’s one friend that I talk to to this day and I’m happy he’s doing so well with the Grizzlies and last year with the Warriors. He’s an amazing basketball player but an even more amazing person and that’s what people know about Omri. The list can go on. He’s an unbelievable guy.”

The pressure of being a high draft pick:
“I think that a lot of the pressure comes from the media. I was never a pressure guy like I need to do this or do that. With that list of names, it’s unbelievable as to who was in that draft. A lot of people said that this draft wasn’t going to be that good and that there weren’t a lot of big names in the draft. But as you can tell, there are some guys like Kawhi Leonard who has a championship and two defensive player of the year awards, Kyrie Irving with a championship or Klay Thompson with 3 championships now, the list can go on with the types of players who were in that draft. It comes more from the media and I fell into that and wanted to prove people wrong instead of doing the things that I know I can do. But Everybody has their own path. Obviously the end goal is to get back and to do the things I know I can do. I’m still young, I’m only 27 years old and I want to continue getting better and prove where I should be. But I have to take it game by game and that’s the ultimate result of wanting to get back to the NBA. I’m here right now and I want to just keep getting better. Hopefully I’ll get back to where I know I belong.”