Williams parlayed a hot month of March for the injury-riddled Mavs into a graduation from the ranks of two-way players. Has he supplanted Jaden Hardy in the team’s pecking order at guard going into next season?
In the desolation of the Basketball Year of Our Lord 2024-25, Dallas Mavericks two-way guard Brandon Williams was a rare glimmer of light.
Had things gone more according to plan on a team level, Williams never would have had the room to grow into a full-time roster spot, which he finally earned on April 10 after going undrafted out of Arizona in 2021. But here we are.
The deal was announced to be in process a couple of days earlier — first reported, as is tradition, by ESPN’s Shams Charania. Williams’ signing came on the heels of a hot March, during which the diminutive third-year guard averaged 16.6 points, 4.5 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game as the Mavericks’ season sank slowly into the ocean. The band continued to play, though, and Williams became a legitimate piece amid that strange confluence of circumstance.
Williams has a nose for the bucket and a knack for getting there through the tall trees inside. But what kept him on the floor ahead of the known entity of Jaden Hardy for that spectacular month of March was his improved shooting touch (52.1% from the floor), especially from 3-point range (40% in a somewhat limited sample), and his ability to hang onto the ball.
Season in review
When Kyrie Irving went down with a non-contact knee injury, which ended up requiring reconstructive surgery on his left ACL, on Mar. 3 against the Sacramento Kings, Dallas’ season was effectively over. That was also when the door swung wide open for Williams to be able to prove his worth. Up until that point, Williams had been used sparingly, playing 20 minutes or more just three times to that point while still on the two-way contract he signed in July 2024. He played under a two-way deal with Dallas for part of the 2023-24 season as well.
In January, he hit two 3-pointers and scored 13 points in a 134-122 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but was relegated to mop-up duty in most of his other appearances to that point. When Irving went down, that all changed.
Williams’ emergence coincided with Hardy’s loss of favor among the Dallas coaching staff, whose minutes seemed to drop off toward the end of January. When Irving went down, it was Williams who was asked to step up to the tune of 26 minutes per game for the rest of March, and it was Williams who shot 54.1% from the field while maintaining a better than 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in those minutes.
The desperate times that led to what seemed like the desperate measure of playing a two-way guy over the more established — if also deeply flawed — Hardy provided Williams with a month-long showcase. Williams had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and he played like it. Sure, they were all losses, but Williams had six games in a row with at least 24 minutes and 11 points in early March. He scored a career-high 31 points on 10-of-15 shooting (4-of-8 from 3-point range) in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, racked up 25 on 11-of-14 shooting in a loss at the Houston Rockets and had 19 points and six assists in a loss at the San Antonio Spurs.
Williams was turning heads within the organization, even if Mavs fans began to walk away from the team that spurned so many by trading away Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. Williams wrapped up the year by scoring 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting in a win over the Toronto Raptors in the penultimate regular season game, then going for 17 again (on 3-of-4 shooting from deep) in the Mavs’ Play-In win at the Kings and 16 in the season-ending Play-In loss at the Grizzlies.
Best game
Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images
That 31-point explosion against the Grizzlies showed the sicko Mavericks fans who were still watching games at that point the growth in Williams’ game. It had become clear at this point that he is better than Hardy, and likely always has been. The three-year, $18 million deal Hardy signed just two days before the regular season tipped off likely kept Hardy in the rotation and Dallas coaches from discovering Williams’ well-kept secret a little longer than it should have.
Williams came off the bench in that loss to the Grizzlies but immediately got to work. He scored his first eight points in a span of less than three minutes late in the first quarter. His fourth 3-ball of the game came midway through the third quarter and tied the game, 71-71. The Mavs predictably stumbled down the stretch, of course, but Williams proved he belonged, and as soon as the Mavericks were able to under the salary cap restrictions of their own making, they rewarded him for his efforts.
Contract status
Terms of the “multi-year” deal Williams inked with the Mavericks were not immediately released back in April, but according to Spotrac, the Mavs are pushing the boundaries of the definition of the term “multi-year” here. After missing five games when the number of games Williams was allowed to play under his previous two-way deal was exhausted, Dallas signed Williams to what I guess is technically a two-year deal in the end.
The deal allowed Williams to suit back up for the final two games of the regular season, as well as the pair of Play-In games, for just over $47,000, and the second year of the deal is worth just a hair under $2.3 million in 2025-26. Williams will be an unrestricted free agent following next season.
Looking ahead
It will be interesting to see which guards are still in the fold with the Mavericks next season. Hardy and Williams are on the books. Spencer Dinwiddie and Dante Exum are unrestricted free agents. And Irving, of course, will likely be recovering from ACL surgery until at least January 2026. ESPN cited unnamed team sources last month, saying there was “optimism” that Irving could be back by January, which means absolutely nothing.
The Mavs may take a guard in the first round of the upcoming NBA Draft. They may not have enough cap space to fire much cash at the guard problem in free agency. So, it’s hard to say what Williams’ workload will look like next year, as he tries to defy the odds and earn a second NBA contract after two separate stints as a two-way player.
He made one thing crystal clear, though, as the 2024-25 campaign came to a close. He’s better than Hardy and should be ahead of him in the pecking order. Mavs head coach Jason Kidd signaled his willingness to give Williams the nod over Hardy, who will make roughly three times as much as Williams will next season, after Hardy’s parade of boneheaded plays pockmarked his 2024-25 season.
Williams might be a player who can help you win. Hardy has all bur proved he is not.
Grade: A
Who doesn’t love to see a guy like Williams succeed? He improved his outside shooting tremendously in his third year, and that may be what unlocks a longer-term NBA run for the 25-year-old. Even before he signed his two-year NBA deal, he was the NBA G-League’s leading scorer at over 28 points per game. We’re here to tell you, sports fans, getting buckets is a skill that translates, and Williams is a bucket-getter above all else.