The Fantasy Basketball Encyclopedia

Player Dossier · Portland Trail Blazers

Robert Williams III

Robert Williams III remains a blocks-and-FG specialist whose per-minute fantasy appeal is much larger than his intentionally managed role.

2026-27 projection

GP MPG FG% FT% 3PM PTS REB AST STL BLK TO
52 17.0 .700 .620 0.0 6.8 7.0 1.1 0.7 1.5 0.9

Correction 2026-07-18: raised from 15.0 to 17.0 MPG, which restores his 2025-26 rate line exactly (6.7/7.0/1.5 blocks in 17.1 minutes). The prior figure implied Portland extended him in June and then cut his role, with no reported basis. The managed-workload logic survives in the 52-game forecast, which is where it belongs — Portland limits his availability, not his per-night role.

Role and evidence

Portland signed Williams to a multi-year extension June 30 after he averaged 6.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.0 assist and 1.5 blocks in 17.1 minutes over 59 games. It was his highest games-played total since 2021-22. Trail Blazers, 2026-06-30

He backs up Donovan Clingan and is likely to sit some back-to-backs. Portland can preserve him because it also rosters Yang Hansen, Branden Carlson and Micah Potter. Hashtag ranks Williams No. 163 in dynasty. Hashtag Basketball, updated 2026-07-02

Fantasy value

Range

Related: Portland Trail Blazers · Donovan Clingan · Yang Hansen

Career record

Pre-NBA: Texas A&M, two seasons (2016-17 and 2017-18), SEC. Freshman year 11.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.5 blocks on .558 from the field and .590 from the line, winning SEC Defensive Player of the Year and second-team All-SEC. Sophomore year 10.4 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.6 blocks on .668 from the field and .471 from the line, repeating as SEC Defensive Player of the Year and making the SEC All-Defensive team. The profile has never changed: elite rim finishing and shot-blocking, no shooting range, and a free-throw stroke that was already broken in college. Draft: 2018, first round, 27th overall, Boston. Traded: October 1, 2023 to Portland with Malcolm Brogdon and two future first-round picks for Jrue Holiday.

Season Age Team GP MPG PTS REB AST STL BLK 3PM FG% FT% TO
2018-19 21 BOS 32 8.8 2.5 2.5 0.2 0.3 1.3 0.0 .706 .600 0.3
2019-20 22 BOS 29 13.4 5.2 4.4 0.9 0.8 1.2 0.0 .727 .647 0.7
2020-21 23 BOS 52 18.9 8.0 6.9 1.8 0.8 1.8 0.0 .721 .616 1.0
2021-22 24 BOS 61 29.6 10.0 9.6 2.0 0.9 2.2 0.0 .736 .722 1.0
2022-23 25 BOS 35 23.5 8.0 8.3 1.4 0.6 1.4 0.0 .747 .610 1.0
2023-24 26 POR 6 19.8 6.8 6.3 0.8 1.2 1.2 0.0 .654 .778 1.2
2024-25 27 POR 20 17.6 5.8 5.9 1.1 0.7 1.7 0.1 .641 .882 0.9
2025-26 28 POR 59 17.1 6.7 7.0 1.0 0.6 1.5 0.2 .708 .596 0.8
Career 294 19.6 7.1 6.9 1.3 0.7 1.6 0.0 .720 .661 0.9

ESPN's turnover figures for 2018-19 and 2019-20 conflict with StatMuse's; the StatMuse values are used above because only they reconcile with the published 0.9 career mark.

Fantasy history: season-end 9-category ranks are not verifiable from public sources for any season of his career and are not estimated here. The shape is unambiguous regardless of rank: a .720 career field-goal percentage and 1.6 blocks are two of the most valuable per-game categories in the format, and a .661 career free-throw percentage is one of the most damaging, which makes him a punt-FT specialist rather than a general-purpose asset. 2021-22 is the only season in which he was a startable standard-league player on a full-season basis. Hashtag currently ranks him 163rd in dynasty. In points leagues he is materially worse than his category profile, because blocks and field-goal efficiency are the two things points formats undervalue most and his raw scoring has never cleared 10.0.

Durability: 32 GP, 29, 52, 61, 35, 6, 20, 59. The named events: turf toe plus a sprained ankle in the 2021 playoffs; a torn left meniscus on March 28, 2022 with surgery and a 4-6 week timeline; a 2022-23 season begun late while still working back from that knee; a dislocated patella on November 5, 2023 that required surgery and ended his first Portland season after six games; a concussion evaluation on November 25, 2024; and left knee inflammation requiring arthroscopy on March 20, 2025, ruling him out another 4-6 weeks. The 2025-26 rebound to 59 games is the single most important fact in the file, and it came with an explicit cost — Portland did not play him in a single back-to-back all season. That is not a player who got healthy; that is a player whose availability is being purchased with a permanent 15-to-20-game haircut.

Trajectory: The peak is five years behind him. 2021-22 was the real season — 29.6 minutes, 10.0 and 9.6 with 2.2 blocks on .736 shooting, a top-tier defensive big playing starter minutes — and everything since has been the knees taking it back a piece at a time. The per-36 line tells the story cleanly: 12.2 points and 11.7 rebounds in 2021-22 against 14.1 and 14.7 in 2025-26, meaning the per-minute production is not merely intact but nominally better, while the minutes themselves have fallen from 29.6 to 17.1. He is still an excellent basketball player in the possessions he plays; he is simply not permitted to play many of them. At 29 in October 2026, behind Clingan, with Yang Hansen and two other centers on the roster and a front office that has just paid him $44 million over three years precisely to keep him fresh, there is no realistic path to a minutes increase. The new contract entrenches the management rather than loosening it. Treat the 59 games and 17 minutes as the ceiling of the role, not the floor.

Career sources: ESPN career stats · StatMuse season-by-season · Wikipedia — Texas A&M career, draft, injury and trade history · ESPN — $44M Portland extension, June 2026 · Trail Blazers — extension announcement

Open questions