With the season winding down, the Utah Jazz gave the latest updates on some of their players who have been or will be absent.
Cody Williams:
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) April 2, 2025
Williams tested positive for mononucleosis on April 1. He will miss the remainder of the 2024-25 season and will be re-evaluated in three weeks before starting off-season conditioning.
Here's to hoping Williams fully recovers and will be ready for Summer League this offseason. Obviously, getting mono is unfortunate, and Williams didn't deserve to have his season end early like that. What makes it even sadder is that it ends a season that came with a fair amount of excitement, only to end in supremely underwhelming fashion.
Make no mistake, Williams' rookie season could not have gone worse.
Cody Williams, the Jazz’s No. 10 overall pick from the 2024 NBA Draft, is producing one of the worst efficiency seasons ever for a rookie:
— Evan Sidery (@esidery) April 2, 2025
41.9 TS%
32.3 FG%
25.9 3PT%
Williams has been starting for Utah as they are in full-on tank mode hoping to secure the No. 1 overall pick. pic.twitter.com/E9C103jMyh
It hasn't gotten talked about as much as cases like these concerning high lottery picks usually would for two reasons:
1. Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski have been so awesome that knowing where the Jazz picked them overshadowed Williams' struggles.
2. This draft was pretty weak going in, so it's unsurprising that a raw prospect like Williams didn't thrive out of the gate.
But what has made it worse is that players who were picked after Williams have shown progress the Jazz hoped he would. Matas Buzelis (Bulls) and Baylor Scheierman (Celtics) come to mind on that front. Their teams have given them more opportunities because both of them have shown they are worth developing.
The Jazz gave Williams plenty of opportunities, including starting him in quite a few games. When that wasn't working out, they sent him down to the G-League, which led to the same results. In all, Williams still looks just about the same as he did when the season began.
By contrast, Filipowski looked ready to go from the start, and Collier became more exciting as a prospect as he figured himself out mid-season. Their progress may have stood out more than Williams' struggles, but it still makes him look bad in a way.
More eyes will be on Williams from here on out
It's also been brought up that, of course, the Jazz shouldn't give up on Williams. He's got plenty of time to figure himself out, but coming into the season as Utah's highest lottery pick, expecting him to be a superstar from the get-go would have been unfair, but expecting some in-season progress wasn't too much to ask.
Because Williams did not improve much, more attention will be paid to whether he will improve and whether he is an NBA-caliber player. He did not consistently show that, which is a problem for someone who was picked No. 10.
Especially when this No. 10 pick is the brother of one of the NBA's rising stars. Expecting Williams to follow a similar path to Jaylen isn't fair, but it is fair to expect Williams to have the trajectory of a rotation player.
Needless to say, this will be a very telling offseason for the Jazz rookie.