As a kid, Jay Williams pretended he was making the game-winning shot while playing basketball in his backyard. He kept right on making shots until he became an NCAA champion and two-time national player of the year at Duke, and the second overall NBA draft pick in 2002.

But after just one season with the Chicago Bulls, Williams's basketball playing career ended after a horrific motorcycle accident. In an instant, the man with as fast a first step as any point guard in the history of basketball could no longer do anything for himself, including walk.

In Life Is Not an Accident, Jay Williams shares his story of being a young man trying to wrest control of his life from his overinvolved parents, from the pleasures and perils of fame and money, and from the near-fatal mistake that threatened to define him. After a decade spent recovering from his injuries, Williams recounts with a rare honesty his hard-fought path to college basketball stardom and the painful lessons he's learned.

Now in his thirties, Jay Williams is convinced that the crash that almost killed him at twenty-one was no accident, but a tragedy that taught him how to live.