Sorry Blake Griffin But You Aren't Even CLOSE To The NBA Player With The Most Teammates Named "Williams"
Great interview with newly retired and forever two-time Blake of the Year winner, Blake Griffin, on Pardon My Take on Wednesday including an in-depth discussion on where Blake stands in the annals of NBA history of having the most teammates named "Williams".
Williams is indeed the most common last name in NBA history. There are 85 with a last name of exactly Williams, while 93 at least include Williams (ex: Zion Williamson, Corliss Williamson). Johnson is next (74), then Smith (61), Jones (58) and Brown (44).
Unfortunately for Blake, who thought he might have the record with five career teammates named Williams, he's not even close to the leaderboard in Williams' teammate bodies. I ran the proper forensic accounting here to identify every unique player with the name "Williams" anywhere in their name that played on the same team and on the same night at least once. Turns out, 85 players have had more than Griffin's five Williams' teammates.
Here's a graph of the best of the best in this storied statistic showing everyone with eight or more along with Blake Griffin at the bottom added for comparison. As you might guess, I took a basketball reference clip for each Williams which wasn't quite as tedius as it might look, although I did almost quit six Williams' into Gordon Hayward. But I found all the Will I ams ure most don't possess in order to finish the graph with a bunch of names you probably can't even read.
BTW - Blake mentioned he played with a Jamaal Williams but I gotta call cap on this too. There's no Jamaal/Jamal Williams in my database. I show 93 total Williams' to ever play in the NBA and unless he meant Jawad or Jeenathan I have no idea who he's referring to. We might have a bit of a Fight Club or Jimmie Stewart Harvey situation going on here.
But there is good news for Blake:
Anyway - congrats to Blake Griffin on his NBA career. Funny dude and can't wait to see what he gets involved with next. He intimated he might be getting into some movies so I'll end with some potential co-stars I predict he gravitates towards having on his team.