Jason Williams has never been shy about an opinion, and this one is a doozy: on the latest episode of Hoopin' N Hollerin', the Barstool Sports basketball podcast he co-hosts, White Chocolate said he'd rather build around 11th-grade RJ Barrett than a prime John Stockton. Not a young Stockton. Not a rookie Stockton. Prime Stockton, the 10-time All-Star and NBA's all-time assists and steals leader. That's the guy Williams is passing on for a kid who hadn't even played his senior year of high school ball yet.
Williams laid out the RJ Barrett-over-prime-Stockton take live on the podcast, then pivoted into arguing high schoolers deserve a path straight to the NBA.
The take isn't as random as it sounds once you remember who RJ Barrett was as a teenager. Before he ever got to Duke or the NBA, Barrett was the consensus No. 1 recruit in the 2018 class out of Montverde Academy, and as a senior he averaged 28.7 points, 8.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists a night while leading Montverde to a 35-0 season and a national title. That's the version of Barrett Williams is talking about — a physical, do-everything scoring guard who was already producing like a pro before he'd taken a single college class. New York took him third overall in the 2019 draft, and he's since been traded to the Raptors, where he's grown into a legit two-way piece.
The Stockton half of the take is where Williams is really picking a fight. Stockton is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who ran John Stockton-to-Karl Malone pick-and-rolls for over a decade and still owns the assist and steal records by a country mile — records that aren't just standing, they're not even close to being threatened. Taking a high schooler's upside over that level of proven, sustained greatness is the kind of hot take built for a podcast clip, and it worked exactly as designed.
Williams didn't stop at the player comp, either — he used it to argue high schoolers should have a direct path into the NBA again, a debate that's been simmering since the league's one-and-done rule pushed prep stars like Barrett into a mandatory year of college or overseas ball before they could get drafted. It's a position with real weight behind it: guys like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett all jumped straight from high school and turned out fine, and the modern G League and overseas pathways already let elite prospects skip college in everything but name.
This is also just Jason Williams being Jason Williams — a guy whose entire NBA legend was built on flair over fundamentals, so of course he's romanticizing a kid with obvious talent over a technician who ground out assists for 19 seasons. It tracks with the persona, and it's the exact kind of debate-bait Hoopin' N Hollerin' has built its audience on.
The clip is already circulating with fans weighing in on both sides, and it's worth remembering Williams was doing this kind of thing off the podcast set too — showing up for pickup runs and dishing out comps in person, the same instinct for a good soundbite whether the mic is on or not.
Williams was out doing the same thing off-camera, dropping a Steph Curry-meets-Shaq comp on a fan during an in-person gym session.
Whether or not you buy Barrett over prime Stockton, the bigger argument Williams is making — that the league should let generational high school talent in the door sooner — is one that never really goes away in NBA circles. Expect this clip to keep getting kicked around online, and expect Williams to keep doubling down on it the next time a mic gets put in front of him.