Gus Williams died this week, aged 71. He and Dennis Johnson led the Sonics to the 1979 Championship, along with Jack Sikma, Downtown Freddie Brown and Paul Silas. DJ was the Finals MVP. However, Gus may have had one of the weirder careers in NBA history:
1975-76 (GSW): 2nd in ROY voting
1978-79 (Sonics): 19/3/4/2 (wins title, DJ was Finals MVP, no regular season award votes)
1979-80 (Sonics): 22/3.5/5/2.5 (2nd Team All-NBA, 8th in MVP voting)
1980-81: SITS OUT THE SEASON OVER A CONTRACT DISPUTE
1981-82 (Sonics): Cool, got that whole contract thing out of the way...what you got? 23.4/3/7/2 (1st Team All-NBA, 5th in MVP voting, All-Star)
Like, dude straight up sat OUT a season in protest, and came back with the same team and got first team All NBA. That's wild!