![\"Jay](\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/jay-williams.jpg\")
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Jay Williams playing for Duke in a game against Maryland in the 2001 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. (Brian Bahr\/ALLSPORT\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
(JTA<\/a>) \u2014 Jay Williams wants you to know he stills go hard. These days, though, he doesn\u2019t ball in the NBA \u2014 he plays in \u201cJewish leagues\u201d and calls himself the \u201cblack Jewish Jordan.\u201d<\/p>\n The former Duke University basketball star, who sustained career-altering injuries from a motorcycle accident and played a nondescript couple of years in the pros, recently made the revelations on sports columnist Bill Simmons\u2019 self-titled podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n Williams was the point guard on Duke\u2019s national championship team in 2001, and was picked second overall in the 2002 NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls. He was the national college Player of the Year in 2002 and a two-time consensus first-team All-American. In 2003, however, he crashed his Yamaha motorcycle, fracturing his pelvis and dislocating three knee ligaments. He officially retired in 2006 following an unsuccessful comeback attempt with the then-New Jersey Nets.<\/p>\n These days, Williams is a college basketball analyst for ESPN and CEO of the Rising Stars<\/a> youth organization. But Simmons asked him if he still plays basketball often, to which he responded yes, all the time, and in multiple Jewish leagues.<\/p>\n \u201cI bully people, I play serious,\u201d he told Simmons, prompting laughter. \u201cI will punish anybody in all the Jewish leagues I play in. I am like a Jewish Jordan. I\u2019m a black Jewish Jordan. It\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams isn\u2019t the first professional player to play on Jewish hardwood. As a child, superstar LeBron James used to play regularly at the Shaw Jewish Community Center<\/a>\u00a0in Akron, Ohio.<\/p>\n Maybe the “Jewish Jordan” title should go to former NBA All-Star Amar\u2019e Stoudemire, who played for the Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks and claims \u201cHebrew roots.\u201d He announced in April that he was studying Torah and was \u201cin the process\u201d of converting<\/a>\u201d to Judaism. Stoudemire also played for and still partially owns the Hapoel Jerusalem club in Israel.<\/p>\n Then there’s Tamir Goodman, an observant Jewish player who was once dubbed the \u201cJewish Jordan\u201d by Sports Illustrated. He never made it to the NBA but played professionally in Israel and served in its army.<\/p>\n The post Jay Williams, former Duke basketball star, calls himself the ‘black Jewish Jordan’<\/a> appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n