In March of 2010, Reggie Williams became an NBA player as one of 27 D-League call-ups that season. For Williams, the route to the NBA was filled with detours and doubt making the NBA debut more rewarding.

I recently caught up with Williams to discuss his unique road map to the NBA as he prepares for his fourth season.

Williams began his route to the NBA as a five-year-old when he picked up his first basketball with the encouragement of his dad (Reggie Williams Sr.) and older brother (Eric Ferguson).

By age 13, Williams took the game seriously and tried to emulate his game after bigger ball-handlers like Jalen Rose and Penny Hardaway.

“In high school I was the tallest guy so I had to play center on defense and then on offense I played point guard," said Williams. "Jalen Rose was a lefty like me so I admired his game a lot, especially his turnaround jump shot in the post."

Heading into his senior season at Prince George High School, Williams encountered his first detour. Williams didn’t play AAU ball over the summer and his development stalled during his senior season.

After finishing his high school career, Williams failed to receive any Division-I offers until late in the signing period. Virginia Military Institute and former coach Bart Bellairs offered Williams a basketball scholarship, which he immediately accepted.

Longwood, Western Michigan and Akron called Williams shortly thereafter.

Despite the overall lack of interest, Williams kept a positive attitude and remained confident his road would lead to the NBA.

“Before I signed with VMI, I told them, because I knew VMI wasn’t a big school, my goal was to make it to the NBA. I told them you could make the NBA from anywhere and they said, ‘Yeah, just be a big fish in a small pond,’” said Williams.

At the time, only Ron Carter had made it to the NBA from VMI, but Williams was determined to be the second player to do so.

Bellairs immediately gave Williams an opportunity to start, play major minutes, and gain confidence early in his freshman season.

Once Williams became an upperclassman, his stock began to rise nationally.

“Things really started coming to light in my junior year when I led the NCAA in scoring," said Williams. "I realized I had a real opportunity to play (in the NBA). My junior year the new coach, Duggar Baucom, implemented a fast paced offense and from there I kind of made a name for myself."

Williams thrived in the new offensive system under Baucom and led the NCAA in scoring two straight seasons, averaging 28 points both seasons and nearly nine rebounds.

However, despite his individual success as a scorer in back-to-back seasons, Williams went undrafted.

This was another detour on the road to the NBA for Williams, who began to doubt his ability to realistically reach the NBA for the first time.

“Oh definitely, not being drafted," said Williams. "I was told by a team they were going to draft me if I was still there in the second round. That didn’t happen, I didn’t get drafted and playing in Summer League I didn’t get much playing time, which was tough."

After failing to get drafted and make a mark in the NBA Summer League, the road to the NBA for Williams seemed more daunting than ever.

Williams signed overseas with Dijon Bourgogne (France) for one season, where he averaged 12.5 points, five rebounds, and his shooting percentages declined across the board.

“Going over to Europe, I had a decent season, but it wasn’t what I hoped for. You worry and wonder what’s the next step,” said Williams.

Despite a decline on the court overseas compared to his lofty totals in his final two college seasons, Williams’ basketball IQ grew immensely.

“In France I learned how to play professional basketball because at VMI we played up and down where we pressed and there wasn’t much man-to-man defense or set plays. Going to France taught me basketball as far as pick-and-rolls, help side defense, how to execute plays, and made me remember the intricacy of plays. It was great because I learned the game of basketball,” said Williams.

After a year in France, with a better feel for the game to pair with his scoring talent, Williams returned to the United States and hired Ronald Shade to be his agent.

Shade renewed confidence in Williams and told him that he would get a call-up if he played in the D-League.

Shade’s vision for Williams became a reality as the Golden State Warriors called him up on March 2, 2010.

“In the D-League, seeing guys called up before me when I was leading the D-League in scoring was discouraging, but I got the opportunity from Golden State and their organization, which was great and I appreciated that from them,” said Williams.

After barely receiving a Division-I scholarship, going undrafted despite leading the NCAA in scoring two seasons, and playing a year overseas, Williams reached his NBA destination with a 10-day contract to prove he belonged for good.

Williams described the phone call he waited for since he was a five-year-old.

“It’s a funny story because me and my roommate at the time were in Iowa. My roommate Leemire Goldwire was telling me, ‘I think you’re going to get called up, I feel it.’ Then my coach Tony Fritz called. He asked me if I like playing for Sioux Falls and I said, ‘Yeah, am I being traded?’ He said he got a phone call from Golden State and you’re going to meet them in Miami. I ran around the hotel and hugged him (Goldwire),” said Williams.

Meanwhile, back at home, Williams’ brother knew the secret to a call-up all along.

“The funny thing is my brother told me that if I shaved my beard at the time I’d get called up. I cut it, and it was ironic, but I got called up,” said Williams.

The Warriors gave Williams a 10-day chance of a lifetime to make an impression on the team and earn playing time. Up to this point, these were the most important 10 days of his life, but his calm demeanor helped him thrive.

“My mindset was I had nothing to loose," said Williams. "My goal was just to play. I’m getting an opportunity to do what I love and play at the highest level. The worst case scenario was if they didn’t keep me I’d just go back to Sioux Falls and I had a few offers overseas at that time."

When his 10-day contract expired, Williams signed a second 10-day contract before signing for the remainder of the season with the Warriors.

In the 24 games Williams played with the Warriors, he showed flashes of the scoring ability that made him a back-to-back NCAA scoring leader. Williams flourished in the Warriors up-tempo system, similar to his VMI days, and averaged 15.2 points on 50-percent shooting.

Williams was retained the following season with Golden State as a bench player, playing in 80 games averaging nine points.

However, Williams was let go after that season as the Warriors rescinded a restricted offer sheet to him during negotiations for DeAndre Jordan following the NBA lockout.

“It kind of upset me because I really liked Golden State and the Bay Area, but I understood it was a business,” said Williams.

Williams had signed with Caja Laboral (Spain) during that previous August to stay in shape during the lockout. Williams returned to the NBA when he signed with the Charlotte Bobcats for two-years, $5 million.

Williams missed most of last season with a knee injury, as the Bobcats went on to have the worst winning percentage in NBA history.

With no place to go but up Williams is confident the Bobcats can improve this season under new coach Mike Dunlap as he assumes a larger role upon return from injury.

“I think this year with the pieces we have, the coaching staff, and the returning guys this season will be different," said Williams. "I’d love to be a part of the growth of the Charlotte Bobcats. We had a tough season last year so I’d love the opportunity to redeem that and I like Charlotte the city, the fans, my teammates, and I would love to be a part of the growth of this team."

This is the final year of his two-year deal with the Bobcats and Williams is ready to continue his NBA journey.

“I didn’t take the usual path that most guys take," said Williams. "It was a different journey, but I think everything happens for a reason. I’m blessed and I’m just trying to take advantage of the opportunity I’ve been given and play basketball as long as I can. It’s been amazing. I wouldn’t trade any moment that happened for anything. It makes me appreciate it more and more."

The road map Williams used to make the NBA shows us it’s not always about the destination, but the journey that can be the most rewarding part of any trip.

Follow @MikeAScotto

With the news of Maalik Wayns entering the draft after his junior season at Villanova, you may wonder whether it is an intelligent decision for him to forgo his final year of collegiate eligibility. To put it simply, it is probably not the best decision. He is clearly receiving questionable advice and should return to Villanova for his senior year.

I realize this may be alarming to him and many of his fans; however, I have come to this conclusion based on a number of objective factors, looking far beyond the scouting reports and dilemma facing a point guard who failed to lead his team to the NCAA Tournament. 

I reviewed the previous 10 NBA drafts, examining the number of point guards drafted.

2002: 13
2003: 15
2004: 16
2005: 12
2006: 12
2007: 10
2008: 8
2009: 18
2010: 7
2011: 19 

This includes all guards who can run the point and those considered to be “combo” guards.  

The 2009 draft was a great year for point guards entering the draft; 18 were drafted. The following season, John Wall was taken with the first pick by the Wizards and only six point guards were selected after him. All four second-rounders selected are not active in the league today. 

Because an abundance of big men chose to stay in school based on the NBA lockout and CBA negotiations, the 2011 draft was relatively weak. There were 19 point guards selected in 2011, setting the tone for less to get drafted this year.

Taking a closer look, we see that this year’s draft class is very deep. Although Jared Sullinger, Harris Barnes and Perry Jones III returned for their sophomore campaigns this season, it is likely they will all enter the 2012 NBA Draft. NCAA Champion Kentucky has the potential to have six players drafted. Andre Drummond is a big man with a lot of potential, and his UConn teammate Jeremy Lamb will almost certainly excel in the NBA. North Carolina, Duke and Syracuse should all provide some draft quality candidates as well.

Despite what appears to be a very deep draft class, the point guard position lacks candidates who will make an immediate impact at the NBA level. Looking at previous drafts, and the fact that 19 were selected in 2011, I predict only eight to 12 point guards will be drafted, the majority of which will be second round picks.

I believe only one point guard will be selected as a lottery pick.  

Analyzing available point guard draft candidates should paint a clear picture as to why I feel this way. Below is a list of 26 players who can run the point that may potentially enter the 2012 NBA Draft. Although they all likely believe they are NBA caliber, many will none-the-less be forced to find work overseas. 

Scott Machado
Kendall Marshall
Jordan Theodore
Dee Bost
Tu Holloway
Scoop Jardine
Tyshawn Taylor
Marquis Teague
Maalik Wayns
Jorge Gutierrez
Damian Lillard
Jordan Taylor
Tony Wroten
J'Covan Brown
Juan Fernandez
Gerald Robinson
Casper Ware
Devoe Joseph
Momo Jones
Truck Bryant
Dion Waiters
Ashton Gibbs
Malcolm Grant
Jason Clark
Menaja Nedovic
Tomas Satoransky 

If Maalik Wayns is faced with the option of returning to Villanova or playing in Europe, I would highly advise him to return for his senior season. Is he one of the top eight to 12 point guards entering the Draft? Returning to school will allow him to work on his weaknesses and provide another opportunity to lead his team to a successful season.

Villanova is a very young team that will continue to grow and develop. The Wildcats bring back 2013 seniors Dominic Cheek and Yarou Mouphtaou, who each averaged over 10 points per game, respectively. Mouphtau, a defensive force to be reckoned with, also averaged over eight boards per game. He adds a presence in the paint, averaging almost a block per game over his first three years of collegiate basketball. Returning with the hunger to succeed is sophomore JayVuaghn Pinkson, a 6-7 Brooklyn native, that will energize this squad and provide a ton of quality minutes in the front court.

With Wayns' potential return to Villanova, he will be given more responsibility and be provided an opportunity to lead a talented and promising group to the NCAA tournament in 2013.  In addition, the Big East stage is a much better place (as opposed to Europe) to display his improvements that he hopes to make this offseason. Scouts will be watching him closely to monitor his development. His athleticism, defensive skills and lateral quickness are areas that all need improvement and rumor has it he has been working very hard to change scouts’ opinions.  It will be easier to excel in the Villanova system as opposed to learning a new coach’s system overseas. With the number of drafted point guards expected to be low in June 2012, Maalik Wayns will be better off returning to school. Plus, an abundance of point guards are expected to be drafted in 2013, increasing his odds of celebrating a late birthday in June of 2013.

- Jeffrey Dobin is a certified player agent.

A freshman point guard averaging a little over 10 points per game wouldn’t usually merit multiple mentions in the editorial section of the New York Times. But the story of UConn’s Ryan Boatright, and the series of suspensions he received earlier in the season, is a perfect example of the blatant hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the NCAA.

As Times columnist Joe Nocera outlined in a series of devastating columns, Boatright was suspended because his mother received “impermissible benefits” from a “third party” during his recruitment.

Translated into English, Tanesha Boatright, a struggling single mom with four young children, received some money from Reggie Rose, the older brother of Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls MVP and one of her son’s AAU coaches. She used that money to make some payments on her car as well as accompany Ryan on college recruiting trips.

While Boatright was one of the Top-50 players in the country last year, at (a generous) 6’0, 160, his NBA future is far from assured. Due to the importance of size defensively, a player of his stature essentially has no margin for error if he wants to be drafted. Of the approximately 450 players in the NBA, only a handful -- Will Bynum (Detroit), Isaiah Thomas (Washington), Nate Robinson (Golden State), JJ Barea (Minnesota), DJ Augustin (Charlotte), Sebastian Telfair (Phoenix) -- are 6’0 and under.

So, because of the NBA’s refusal to make any kind of substantial investment in amateur basketball, Boatright has no choice but to attend an NCAA institution to become a professional basketball player. With dozens of quality 22-year-old college guards coming into the D-League each season, why would an NBA team bother to take a chance on one who didn’t follow the conventional path?

For a Top-50 recruit like Boatright, a player with a legitimate, but not a guaranteed, shot at the NBA, picking the right college is one of the most important decisions of his life. And as anyone who ever watched He Got Game knows, there are a lot of unsavory ways to sway an 18-year-old on a recruiting trip.

For most of the NCAA’s middle and upper-class students, choosing a college without their parents seeing it first would be unthinkable. But how exactly was Ryan’s working-class mother, who lives in Illinois, supposed to be accompany him to Connecticut? According to the NCAA’s logic, by accepting money from a friend for a plane ticket, she was jeopardizing her son’s amateur status.

Taking this idea to its logical conclusion, the NCAA reserves the absolute right to dictate who the parents of its “student-athletes” associate with personally and professionally. After all, an agent or a school could use any third party to funnel money to Tanesha Boatright, therefore, in theory, no one should be able to give her money for any reason while her son is playing college basketball.

The only people allowed to make money off her son are the schools themselves, who signed a 14-year $11 billion deal for the TV rights to March Madness in 2010. The NCAA is making over a billion dollars a year televising the exploits of players like Boatright, yet they nearly ruined his career, and his family’s once-in-a-lifetime chance to break out a cycle of poverty that goes back generations, over a couple thousand dollars.

The Boatright family wasn’t even trying to divert any of the prodigious sums of money the NCAA makes off men’s basketball; they were just trying to do everything possible to ensure their son had the best chance of eventually playing in the NBA.

Strip away the pageantry and high-minded tradition, and the NCAA’s business model is clear: using the widespread interest and popularity generated by the athletic ability of lower-income football and basketball players to subsidize scholarships for golfers, tennis players and swimmers playing sports that no one watches or cares about. After all, if a family can afford to make their son a world-class golfer, they can probably afford the cost of college.

Of course, as anyone who has followed college sports over the last generation already knows, there’s no fighting the forces of the free market. Because they can’t compete over the salaries of their players, schools have invested tens of millions in coaching salaries and practice facilities in an escalating arms race to gain an advantage in recruiting. Meanwhile, the more the NCAA squeezes young players, the more that wind up slipping through their fingers.

That’s why they are so quick to attack someone like Ryan Boatright. He’s just another scalp they can use to threaten the next crop of high school athletes from associating with “undesirables” while patting themselves on the back for battling the scourge of third parties trying to exploit “amateur” athletes.

The only third party allowed to profit off college basketball players is the NCAA itself and they’ll fight to the bitter end to ensure it stays that way.