It’s an annual tradition: My column explaining why I think your favorite team isn’t going to win as many games as you think they are.

These predictions are for fun, not a demonstration of my deep-seated loathing for your favorite team, and not the product of a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to produce impeccable forecasts. I make it all up, and then I talk about it. (I do, however, rely on FanGraphs’ projections as a starting point for several things here, especially some individual player projections, and this piece would be far harder without them.)

I’ve done this for at least 15 years now, and the reactions are always the same — people look for what I said about their favorite teams and then yell at me about it. I got one division winner right last year, and for the second year in a row a team I picked to finish in fourth place in their division won the pennant (the Yankees). This should be an annual favorite column for people who like to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. You want proof? I’ll give you proof, every year, in 3,000 words or so.

So, here are my projections for the 2025 season, including playoff results and post-season awards. Disagree all you like, as long as you enjoy.

Team records by division

I guess I’m late to the party, predicting the Red Sox to win their division (and, in this case, to have the best record in the league). They did more to upgrade their roster this winter than any other team in the American League, and they’ve made the right call at second base, giving Kristian Campbell the nod. On paper, I think they’re the best team in the AL, likely to lead or come close to leading the league in runs scored and be at or above the median in run prevention.

That said, there’s some significant downside risk in that rotation: Garrett Crochet has had only one full season as a starter, Walker Buehler’s first year back from his second Tommy John surgery was not a success, and the guys who were supposed to be their next three starters are all going to start the year on the injured list.

The Orioles were perfectly situated to make a big move with the Yankees losing Juan Soto, but they made a lot of small moves that don’t seem to add up to the big move, so their rotation remains a real weakness for a team that is trying to get to the World Series — and has the lineup and defense to do so. They don’t have a true No. 1 starter; they have a few guys who could be No. 2s on a good team, but neither Grayson Rodriguez nor Kyle Bradish is going to pitch a full season in 2025, and there’s a decent chance the Orioles don’t get 20 starts from the two combined. I’m over the fascination with Ryan Mountcastle — they have better options, including Coby Mayo, just optioned to the minor leagues the other day.

Tampa Bay losing Shane McClanahan for a month or more could hurt them significantly because they’re likely to be on the playoff bubble, so each marginal win is especially important to their odds of seeing October. They’re still likely to be an above-average run prevention team, but they’re running back almost the same offense that was the worst in the American League last year (well, among non-White Sox teams), only adding a full season of Junior Caminero.

I might have picked the Yankees to win the division before they lost Gerrit Cole for the year; he was a 5 to 7 WAR pitcher in 2021 and 2023, and replacing him with … well, whoever they replace him with is at least that much of a downgrade, maybe more if they have to hand those starts to guys who are below replacement level. Clarke Schmidt is out, Luis Gil is out, and Soto’s gone. I loved the pickup of Max Fried, but there’s only so much slack he can pick up.

The Yankees’ path to the postseason would include a breakout year from Anthony Volpe, a Rookie of the Year-level campaign from Jasson Domínguez, and a full year of the Jazz Chisholm Jr. they got in August and September. (Yes, that’d be a 6-win season. He’s physically capable of it.)

The Blue Jays are just in a bad spot; whether Roki Sasaki would have made them contenders is immaterial, as it would have at least changed fans’ perception of the team and validated the club’s previous attempts to sign some of the best free agents on the market. Now they’re left with a team that might be competitive in either Central division or the AL West, but not this one. Their bullpen, one of the worst in MLB history in 2024, should be better, both from the addition of Jeff Hoffman, the re-acquisition of Yimi García and from regression (up) to the mean.

It irks me to put a team that did nothing to improve itself this winter atop its division, but the Twins are still the best AL Central team on paper. They added three players, all free agents on one-year deals worth a total of $10.25 million, which is what you find in the dictionary if you look up the word “not-trying.” (Fine, two words.) They were a bit unlucky last year, finishing just 82-80 with an above-average offense and average run prevention.

The Royals are at least trying to win. (Rick Scuteri / Imagn Images)

The Royals, on the other hand, did try to get better this offseason, but they were working uphill to some degree as their 2024 season saw them get over 150 starts from five guys, four of whom were better than league average. They re-signed Michael Wacha, brought in some pitching depth, and traded for Jonathan India, who gives them a viable OBP threat to get on base in front of Bobby Witt Jr. The pitching depth — in the forms of Michael Lorenzen and Carlos Estévez — is a modest insurance policy against the inevitable starts some of their four returning starters will miss, but it’s not going to cover them if one of them misses half the season. At least they did something.

The Tigers are in a similar boat as the Orioles — they had all the room in the world to add talent, and did almost nothing, just bringing in Gleyber Torres on a one-year, make-good contract that blocked Jace Jung at the only position he can realistically play right now. (Torres is a good bounce-back candidate, though, just not a great fit here.) Their own improbable playoff run last season isn’t something they can replicate over 162 games, and even if Tarik Skubal has another Cy Young season, they’re going to need two more starters to step forward and more.

Cleveland won the division last year with 92 wins, but it was a huge fluke, between their outlier performance with runners in scoring position (sorry, that’s not a separate skill) and the outlier performance of their bullpen. They also didn’t do anything to get better this winter, trading their starting second baseman for some pitching depth, re-acquiring Nolan Jones, and bringing back Carlos Santana, who may or may not be older than the guy who played “Oye Cómo Va.” Unless they just happen to get exceptional performances out of everyone for a second year in a row, they’ve got regression written all over them. And yet they could still end up winning this weak division.

The White Sox should be better this year just by chance, although fate seems to be conspiring against them with Drew Thorpe now the fifth pitcher in the organization to blow out his elbow just this spring. Just by runs scored and allowed last year, they should have won around 48 games, and this year they should have more players coming than going, with Luis Robert Jr. the one member of the lineup or rotation with significant trade value right now. A 107-loss season would be a 14-game improvement over 2024.

The Mariners have a playoff-caliber rotation and led the league in ERA last year; even with George Kirby missing the start of this season, they’re going to be among the best run-prevention teams again in 2025. They were an 89-win team by runs scored and allowed last year, so there’s enough here to see them potentially winning the division even though they didn’t make any big improvements or additions this winter. Julio Rodríguez seems like a good bet to return to his 2023-24 form, which should be worth another win or two.

Can the Rangers get healthy and return to their World Series-level play? (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

The Rangers were active this offseason, making marginal improvements to a roster that’s not that dissimilar from the one that won the World Series in 2023. Their fate this year may come down to health more than anything — namely, Jacob deGrom, Evan Carter, Jonathan Gray — as well as whether they pull the plug quickly if Adolis García doesn’t show immediate improvement this spring.

The Astros lost two of their best players from 2024, with Alex Bregman leaving in free agency after they traded Kyle Tucker for Cam Smith and Isaac Paredes, a deal that might not make them any worse off this year than they would have been if they’d kept Tucker. The rotation looks thin for the first time in a while, with very little room for error if any of their starters has to miss a significant amount of time (especially now that Luis García is already dealing with elbow soreness), and unless they have a run like the Royals did last year, with their starters almost never missing a turn, they’ll probably fall just short of the playoffs.

The Athletics’ stadium situation may be a joke, a punchline delivered by John Fisher with laughter provided by the league, but the team on the field is actually getting better. The extension they gave Lawrence Butler won’t win them any more games this year, but it does underscore the tremendous scouting and player development job there, as their 2018 sixth-round pick might now be their best player. Nick Kurtz, their 2024 first-rounder, won’t be too long in reaching the majors, and the rotation is credible, if not exactly contender quality.

The Angels added Yusei Kikuchi to their rotation and picked up some stragglers for the lineup, but it’s hard to see those moves making this team competitive, let alone a contender, given the returning roster and the massive unknown that is Mike Trout’s availability. They were third-worst in the AL in run-scoring last year and second-worst in run prevention. They might be a little better in both categories and still lose 90 games.

Atlanta didn’t make any huge moves this winter, but they’ll get Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr., back early this season, and that may be all they needed to do. Sean Murphy’s injury opens the door for their top prospect Drake Baldwin to get some big-league time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he acquits himself well enough to make demoting him a tough decision. Jurickson Profar probably won’t repeat his huge 2024 season, but he could give half of that value back and still be an upgrade for them in left.

Juan Soto signing with the Mets was the premier offseason acquisition. (Sam Navarro / Imagn Images)

The Mets did make some huge moves this winter, signing the best free agent in the class in Juan Soto, and the expectation now is World Series or bust, or something like that. Getting to the playoffs should be the real expectation, and whatever happens in October is about luck and health more than preparation or fast-food mascots. (We’re all in the pockets of Big Purple, though.) The rotation doesn’t fill me with confidence, with a whole mess of oft-injured starters and one converted reliever somehow expected to prevent enough runs to help them win the division. I could see them winning 98 games, and I could see them winning 84.

The Phillies added a starter, Jesús Luzardo, and an outfielder, Max Kepler, to a club that won 95 games last year, although they didn’t address the flaw that keeps killing them in the offseason, the aging lineup, especially its right-handed bats. That group is a year older, according to my math, and the hitters who didn’t make some needed adjustments last year aren’t that likely to be any different this year. The rotation will be one of the best in baseball, again, and the rest of the team is more than good enough to get them into October, but they’ll need luck and maybe another bat to get back to the World Series.

The Nationals stood pat in a winter where they probably could have kicked the rebuild into second gear, as the first wave of players from their biggest trades and from their era of high draft picks has largely hit the majors already. C.J. Abrams, Mackenzie Gore, James Wood, Dylan Crews, Josiah Gray (when he returns from surgery) … that’s the start of a good team, but just the start. The second wave will be in High A and Low A to start this year, so there isn’t going to be much more help coming from the farm in 2025.

The Marlins are going to be one of the worst teams in baseball, by design largely, as they traded away almost everyone good and anyone left who’s good should probably rent by the hour. I heard the clubbies wrote Sandy Alcantara’s name on his locker in disappearing ink.

The Cubs traded for Kyle Tucker, and maybe that’s enough to put them over the top in a division where nobody else did anything so substantial. They should see some improvements from within, and get a boost from Matt Shaw taking over at third base. Another starting pitcher would have been nice, one better than rotation insurance like Matt Boyd; if those running the team were willing to pony up for Alex Bregman, they should have done so for Corbin Burnes.

Joey Ortiz takes his plus defense over to shortstop, replacing Willy Adames. (Stacy Revere / Getty Images)

I’ll predict the Brewers miss the playoffs, and they’ll probably make the playoffs, again. In my defense, teams that rely on … uh, defense are a little harder to predict, at least in my experience of making errant predictions. I’m thrilled that they’re putting Joey Ortiz, a plus defender at short, at his natural position, to take Willy Adames’ spot; I’m less thrilled that they may be punting on third base. I’m more concerned about the rotation than the lineup, though; they’ve pulled some good starters out of some very small hats in recent years, and while I believe they’re good at getting the most out of certain types of starters, their margin for error keeps shrinking.

I wanted to get the Reds closer to the playoffs, at least, as my gut says they’ve accumulated enough talent to get to 85+ wins if they get some good fortune on the health side, but my rational side couldn’t get there. They were actually a below-average offensive team last year, sitting right at the league median in runs per game even playing half their contests in a great hitter’s park. They’ll be a little better this year with Matt McLain back, and maybe they’ll get something from Christian Encarnacion-Strand, but an outfield of Austin Hays, Jake Fraley and TJ Friedl is going to be one of the least productive of any would-be contender’s.

The Cardinals could probably have pushed for the postseason this year given their returning roster, but this looks like the beginning of a rebuild instead, and I’m guessing we see more veterans traded away over the course of the season. I’m eternally hopeful that Jordan Walker figures it out, and they do have a few other players on the roster who are good candidates for a bounceback or for a step forward, but it’s not enough to add up to a winning record. They’ve overhauled their player development staff and there should be some improvements there, especially with all of the pitchers they have in the upper levels who seem to have stalled, but that’s also not likely to do much for the big-league team.

The Pirates might be without their No. 2 starter, Jared Jones, for a while, and their offense remains one of the weakest in baseball. I’m not a big Spencer Horwitz believer, at least not enough to trade Luis Ortiz and two high-beta left-handed pitching prospects for him. I was hoping they’d give Nick Yorke the second-base job, as I think he’s their best option there, and maybe he’ll be back in the majors early enough in the season to boost the offense a little. They had the third-worst offense in the NL last year and I don’t expect them to escape the bottom five.

The Dodgers … yeah. Did you really come here to see what I had to say about the Dodgers? They won the World Series and signed two pitchers who could be aces. Hi ho. I didn’t like “Mookie Betts, Opening Day Shortstop” even before this week’s news that he’s lost a ton of weight due to an illness. Maybe Alex Freeland gets a shot at some point before the All-Star break? There, I found something to say about them that doesn’t come down to how much money they have.

Corbin Burnes gives a solid Arizona rotation a true ace. (Rob Schumacher / The Republic / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

Arizona signed Corbin Burnes, who should be their best starter this year, and they might see improvements this year from returning rotation members Brandon Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson, plus a full season of Merrill Kelly. Losing Christian Walker stings; getting Josh Naylor at least softens the blow. Jordan Lawlar will get 200 at-bats somewhere later in the year, and be productive. In another division, maybe any of the five other divisions, I’d pick the Diamondbacks to win. Or, to put it another way, if things implode in L.A., the Diamondbacks have set themselves up to take advantage.

The Padres’ run of contention isn’t necessarily over, but the window is closing. At least they kept Dylan Cease to try to take one more shot at the playoffs; if they’re out of it at the break, he and Michael King are probably goners, and I’d probably be shopping Luis Arraez and most of the bullpen too. The scenario that gets them into October one more time is an MVP-caliber year from Fernando Tatis Jr., a relatively healthy rotation, and a surprise bounce-back year from one of the older hitters, like Xander Bogaerts. It’s unlikely they get all of that at once.

The Giants spent some money this offseason to make the team better in a division where “better” might still mean fourth place. This looks more like a development year, with Heliot Ramos, Hayden Birdsong, and maybe later in the year Kyle Harrison, Marco Luciano, et al getting reps in the majors to keep growing and making adjustments — or to show the new front office that they’re not part of the future. I don’t want to see Bryce Eldridge anywhere near here until at least the second half. He won’t turn 21 until October and he’s done nothing to show us he’s ready to hit major-league pitching.

Colorado seems like they should have a rookie somewhere on the field or in the rotation, no? They’re just not that young for a team that’s probably going to lose 100 games, with only two lineup members (Ezquiel Tovar and Jordan Beck) and zero rotation members born in this century. I’m hopeful that by Aug. 1, the lineup has at least two more young’uns, maybe Kyle Karros and Adael Amador, and the rotation has Chase Dollander and maybe even Sean Sullivan in it. The first-half version might be hard to watch, though.

Playoff predictions

Wild-card round

Tampa Bay defeats Minnesota

Texas defeats Baltimore

Arizona defeats New York Mets

Philadelphia defeats Chicago Cubs

A Dodgers-Phillies Division Series will be star-studded. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / USA Today)

Divisional round

Boston defeats Texas

Seattle defeats Tampa Bay

Los Angeles Dodgers defeat Philadelphia

Atlanta defeats Arizona

Championship series

Boston defeats Seattle

Atlanta defeats Los Angeles

World Series

Atlanta defeats Boston

Individual award winners

AL MVP: Julio Rodríguez, OF, Seattle Mariners

Last year was an aberration — really, the first half was an aberration, and the second half was more what we expect from Rodríguez, .285/.337/.482. I’m predicting he does that and more over a full season. Also, José Ramírez seems like a permanent threat to win this, even though he’s never actually come out on top.

NL MVP: Juan Soto, OF, New York Mets

Too obvious? I thought about Elly De La Cruz, who exploded last year for a five-win season, but for him to top that I think he’d have to really make a big leap in his swing decisions and plate discipline. The guy in Los Angeles probably has a shot, too. No, not him, the other one. No, not him, either. Well, one of those guys.

AL Cy Young: Logan Gilbert, RHP, Seattle Mariners

Gilbert throws a lot of innings, doesn’t walk anyone, misses enough bats, and if he has one year where a couple of homers stay in the park instead, he’s going to win the Cy Young Award. I’ll just say it happens this year.

There will be more hardware for the phenom Paul Skenes. (Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)

NL Cy Young: Paul Skenes, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates

I feel like this should be everybody’s pick. He might have the best stuff of any starter in baseball right now, at least considering the entire arsenal. The only things that might stop him are injury or the Pirates (meaning they limit his innings).

AL Rookie of the Year: Kristian Campbell, 2B/OF, Boston Red Sox

Campbell won the second base job in the waning days of spring training, and he’s likely to get a long runway even if he starts slow, giving him a big leg up on the competition for this honor.

Other candidates include the Yankees’ Jasson Domínguez, Detroit’s Jackson Jobe, and Texas’ Kumar Rocker.

NL Rookie of the Year: Roki Sasaki, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers

Sasaki’s a boring, obvious pick, because he’s a big leaguer — he played several years in NPB, and was dominant there, so we have good reason to think he’ll pitch well enough here to be the best rookie in the NL. Plus he has a job, which only a few other rookies have on Opening Day.

Other contenders here include Washington’s Dylan Crews, the Cubs’ Matt Shaw, and Atlanta’s Drake Baldwin — all position players, who historically have had an advantage in this award over pitchers.

(Photo illustration of Julio Rodríguez and Orlando Arcia: Steph Chambers and John Fisher / Getty Images)

MIAMI — After two decades of professional tennis, 99 career singles titles and 24 Grand Slam triumphs, Novak Djokovic has become a mystery — to tennis fans and to himself. Both parties are trying to answer the same question, from match to match and tournament to tournament, as his career moves towards an as-yet unknown end.

Who is the greatest player of the modern era at this moment?

Is he the player who faded two weeks ago against Botic van de Zandschulp, in his opening match at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif.? Or is he the player who has plowed through his first three opponents in at the Miami Open the past five days, including Lorenzo Musetti, the world No. 16 from Italy?

Is he the player whose return of serve, one of the greatest in the sport’s history, has been a shadow of its usual self? Or is he the player who broke Musetti five times Tuesday night on his way to a 6-2, 6-2 win?

Is he the player ramping up his schedule as he approaches his 38th birthday, because it’s his last spin around the tennis globe? Or is he the player he described to the Miami crowd when he told them, “You’re going to be seeing me a few more years.”

When it comes to the subject of Novak Djokovic, Djokovic is like everyone else: always searching for the signal in the noise, searching for the data about himself and his tennis that will allow him to separate what matters from what does not. At this moment, there is both too much and not enough data to figure out who and what the Djokovic of 2025 is. All these years later, but just 14 matches into this season, he has become the sport’s international man of mystery — definitively not what he once was, and searching for the answer of what he will be.

“I do hope and wish for Novak that you saw tonight, and then at the same time, I worked hard not to have the Novak that was playing in Indian Wells,” Djokovic said in the mixed zone with reporters when his match with Musetti was over. “The continuity or consistency of the level of tennis nowadays for me is more challenging than it was years ago or 10 years ago, five years ago, and I know that.

“That’s definitely not due to lack of hours spent on the practice court and in the gym because I still keep the dedication. It’s there, but it’s just makes it a bit more challenging for me to maintain the level.”

Djokovic is living through a common misconception about what happens to elite athletes declining from their peaks. The apexes stay sharp and accessible in fleeting moments, even when they need them most: Djokovic found his on his otherworldly run to the gold medal at last year’s Paris Olympic Games. It’s the stability that erodes, the repetitions that are necessary to maintain their excellence.

Djokovic’s biggest triumph this year came at the Australian Open, where he beat Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals after a series of wins that had included serious dips in his level, during which young and inexperienced opponents found ways to hurt him but could not finish him off.

Stunning as it was, the victory was also one of the strangest tennis matches in memory. Djokovic suffered a muscle tear in the first set, but somehow managed to win in four, thanks to a heady cocktail of painkillers, adrenalin and an inexplicable Alcaraz breakdown. The Spaniard succumbed to the stress of playing Djokovic, of thinking about his opponent’s tennis and his physical condition more than he was thinking of his own.

Three days later, Djokovic had to retire from his semifinal against Alexander Zverev at the end of the first set because of his muscle injury. When he arrived in Florida, he had not won a match since beating Alcaraz on that January night in Melbourne.

In Miami, he has wins against Rinky Hijikata, a 24-year-old Australian who has played 13 Grand Slam matches, just over half the number of Grand Slam titles that Djokovic has won. He then beat Camilo Ugo Carabelli, a 25-year-old Argentine who has never won a Grand Slam match.

Both matches opened with a blowout set and ended with Djokovic winning a tiebreak. It’s one of the most familiar patterns in Djokovic matches over the years, just inverted: the tight set to loosen everything up before the acceleration to victory swapped for a fast start and then an ebbing end.

Then came Musetti. On paper, he looked like a legitimate threat. On the court, Djokovic picked up his head and saw Serena Williams sitting in the stands. He looked at his box and saw Andy Murray and Juan Martin Del Potro, the retired Grand Slam champions. One his coach; the other his good friend. All those big names made him a little starstruck and nervous about playing well, especially in front of Williams, the greatest female player of all time.

Musetti’s elegant all-court game suits grass, clay and slow hard courts, but he remains reasonably lost on fast ones. Against the best hard-court player in the history of the sport, he broke serve in the first game and surged to the illusion of a 2-0 lead built on making the match physical. Djokovic decided he wasn’t going to play a match like that and won the next nine games to seize control. Musetti showed about as much resistance as a swinging door.

On Wednesday night, Djokovic will face Sebastian Korda, the young and talented American of a thousand renaissances, seemingly always on the cusp of announcing himself. Korda, 24, is still trying to find his way after a couple of years of wrist injuries; he received treatment on his wrist during his round-of-16 win over Gael Monfils on Tuesday.

Djokovic won their only previous meeting, in Adelaide, Australia, two years ago. He might get some more data about their matchup and about himself Wednesday, but it’s not clear how fit Korda will be to give him what he needs. Djokovic at least has no doubts about his wants: to keep playing at the highest level in an era when even the youngest players approach the game with a level of professionalism unheard of when he was starting out.

“Fitness and recovery and just overall approach to the work, from both physical and mental side has improved so much,” he said in Miami.

“Nowadays, pretty much every player in the top 30 in the world has a full team of three and four people around them that takes care of them, their body and everything, so that that reflects on the court. That’s why the careers are extended now.”

When he embarked on his professional career, players started counting their days when they hit 30, he said. Now it’s more like 35, maybe more.

“Of course I’m in that group. I’m not going to get younger, but I still feel good about my body and about my tennis.”

That may be the data point that matters more than all the others.

(Top photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)

Jay Williams has reached what he calls an “inflection point.”

“If I can’t be the best version of myself, then I can’t be that for the people that I love,” Williams said. “I think that’s what I’m processing now.”

Williams wears many hats these days: ESPN college basketball analyst, a regular contributor to the network’s shows like “Get Up” and “College GameDay,” co-founder of a media company, dad to a son and two daughters and a husband to his wife, Nikki. Taking on all these different roles has led to a recent self-discovery journey for Williams.

“From a self developmental point of view,” he said, “I’m leaning into a lot right now.”

Williams played for coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke for three years, where he won a national championship and was named the consensus National Player of the Year in 2002. The Chicago Bulls selected him with the second pick in the draft that year, with the hope that Williams would become a franchise-changing guard. But in 2003, a motorcycle crash left him with severe injuries. He was 21 years old. After the crash caused his pro career to end early, Williams did what he knew best: Put his head down and barreled through, settling on a new path in broadcasting and attacking it with the same intensity and competitiveness he had as a player.

But recently Williams has started to take a step back and reflect on each area of his life, putting much thought into what the most successful way to juggle it all could look like.

“I got out of my accident because work became basketball,” he said. “That’s how I attacked it. That’s not to say I’ve lost any of my passion or ambition for my work because I haven’t. That’s a huge part of who I am, but learning how to channel that same intentionality or try to learn how to better channel that intentionality to my kids, to my family, and to myself, that’s the inflection point.”

Just as Williams’ understandings about himself have evolved with time, the lessons he’s taken away from his experiences have, too. Here are five tools he’s been leaning on:

Learn to love the process

Somewhere on the sidelines of a college game 20 years ago, you might’ve found Williams doing tongue exercises to improve his speech and diction.

“I can show you what they were,” he said, placing his index finger and middle finger in his mouth. “You do an aaaaghhhh.”

Following the motorcycle accident, Williams worked as an analyst for CBS Sports Network before joining ESPN. When he was starting out, he spoke with a lisp and tended to rush through his sentences, so ESPN paired him with a voice coach to work on enunciation.

But as he was carrying his own camera equipment into games and working on his speech, Williams questioned this kind of work compared to the playing career he had envisioned.

“That was hard for me,” he said. “It was hard for me not to be jealous. Not to be envious. And I missed it.”

As a player, Williams had leaned on a lesson he learned from Krzyzewski: Learn how to fall in love with the process. Over time, Williams started to apply that mentality to the work he put into his media career. He thought to himself: How do I fall in love with this process? How can I fall in love with this work?

“I think that’s when all those things started to translate for me,” Williams said.

Intentionality is powerful

On the way to drop his daughter off at kindergarten in the morning, Williams recites affirmations with her, hoping to teach her about positive self-talk. She is at a new school with new friends and Williams wants to keep a good mindset towards it all, so together, they repeat:

I’m strong. I’m courageous. I’m gentle. I’m kind.

Williams said some of this comes from his mother.

“She always told me that I have to believe,” he said. “It was always her thing. She would always recite lines to me about, ‘If you don’t believe in yourself, who’s going to believe in you?’”

On Williams’ wrist is one of his first tattoos: Believe.

Set time for yourself

When Williams reminds himself of his affirmations, it’s his signal to take a few moments to engage in practices he knows can help his headspace.

The first is breath work.

“It doesn’t matter where I am, it doesn’t matter what the situation is,” he said. “What you’re doing is you’re releasing a lot of that stress and a lot of that anxiety through your breathing.”

He has a specific routine where he tries to inhale as much as possible before exhaling as much as possible. He repeats that process 30 times. On his last exhale, he releases all of his breath and then proceeds to hold his breath for as long as he can.

He also has a visualization tool he uses during the routine.

“What I do is I let those thoughts come and I let them go with each breath,” he said. “And as I breathe, I think of a string that I have attached to the top of my head and it elongates my body. When I breathe, I take it through my diaphragm and think about straightening myself out and I just close my eyes. And I think just through breath work for me, in that moment, all that other stuff disintegrates.”

Williams constantly reminds himself to “stop and slow down,” so at home he has a box where he and Nikki place their phones each night for an hour and a half, just to get away.

“We sit and we eat with our kids,” he said. “And I think (Nikki) has been very good at forcing me and challenging me to do things.”

When in doubt, Charles Barkley it

While speaking about how he views his life and the way he parents his kids, Williams brought up the triangle offense. If he were to explain in full detail the mechanics of the triangle offense to his audience on TV, the viewers would probably get lost. Instead, he might just point out a screen that contributed to a player scoring. Williams calls this “Charles Barkleying,” after the famed NBA analyst known for his sense of humor and accessibility.

“The metamorphosis process of going through my life, I try to Charles Barkley it,” he said. “I try to simplify it.”

He started to do that at Duke. One of his weaknesses was that he would get too emotionally attached to one play. Describing himself as “type A” and a “little bit of a control freak,” Williams would get derailed if a play didn’t go exactly as he visualized it in his mind, and the play would rattle around in his head.

“If I carry that negative connotation to the next play,” he said, “I’m not in the right mindset to accomplish the next play.”

He learned the best thing for him was to watch a lot of film and confront his mistakes after the game. The film simplified things for him. It allowed him to clearly see what was going on and how to fix it, giving him confidence the next time it happened.

He tries to apply the same principles to his life, breaking everything down in a journal.

“When the day was over, I would take a pen and paper and I would think it through,” he said. “‘What happened today? Where did I go wrong? How did I see it coming into it? Was I truly prepared for that? Was I more reactive? How can I do that one differently?’ I kind of addressed the day in its totality at the end of the day.”

Keep an eye on the water levels of your buckets

Williams called the word balance a trigger for him.

“I think it is a ghost-like term that people casually toss out there like a fish line,” he said.

To him, true balance is unattainable.

Williams views the different parts of his life as buckets that he has to remember to fill. And by viewing them as buckets, it helps reinforce the idea that having them all look the same is too much to worry about.

“When you’re running from fire to fire to fire with buckets of water, you inevitably don’t put out any of the fires,” he said. “Because by the time I pour a bucket of water on this fire, and I’m running back to the well to dip it in more water, there’s five more fires that just came out. And by the end of the day, I’m like, ‘Are any of the fires even out?’”

Instead of worrying about all the buckets in his life all the time – being a husband, being a father, being a broadcaster, being a businessman — he tries to just make sure one bucket doesn’t get too empty at the expense of another.

“There are some buckets that are less filled than others on certain respective days, but I think I have to know for myself that it’s going to be OK,” Williams said. “I can come back to a respective bucket and fill it up a little more to try to even it out. As long as I know that I’m doing my best and I’m also making it a priority that I have the energy to keep filling up those buckets, on a day to day basis, that’s what the brevity of the situation is for me. And that’s taken me a really long time to come to the realization that if I can’t do that, nothing is going to be OK.”

All of these ideas have helped Williams create a better awareness and are part of his ever-evolving process to try to show up as the best version of himself.

(Photo: Lance King / Getty Images)