Oscar Robertson is a well-respected legend of the game, but Lou Williams recalls a time he gave a motivational speech for the Raptors which turned sour.
“This is like the beginning of the season and usually, you know, a bring in like, a motivational speaker or somebody,” Williams said on The Underground Lounge. “So Oscar Robertson – he was the speaker. And the speech was going well. We was engaged, we was in tune and then he flipped the switch on us, bro. He just goddamn started hating us out the blue. And the only thing I remember is [he] said something about Shaq like ‘Shaq couldn’t hold Wilt Chamberlain’s bag’. So, that’s the first time you heard the room rumble. So, we try to keep it respectful though, it’s a f**king legend like Oscar Robertson up there talking to us. But, we see now he is not on our side no more. We started looking at each other like ‘What the f*** just happened?’ Like, he don’t like us at all. And then he said ‘Chris Paul couldn’t be in the same gym with Bob Cousy.’ We lost it.”
During Williams’ short time with the Raptors, he won his first Sixth Man of the Year award after averaging 15.5 points and 2.1 assists in 25 minutes per game in the 2014-15 season.
Strangely, Toronto didn’t bring Williams back the next year and he signed with the Los Angeles Lakers and on the same podcast, he explained why.
“The word was they didn’t re-sign me back to Toronto because of my lifestyle,” Williams said. “They said I was a bad influence and they just said my vibe wasn’t right for what they were building out there. Did you ever hear that?”
Williams thinks that the song Drake released in 2015 called 6 Man influenced the Raptors’ decision.
“Drake,” he said. “It was the song, a thousand percent.”
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