Brandon Williams providing Warriors' bench with some sizzle. So when can he unpack his bags?

Three suitcases have remained strewn across the floor of Brandon Williams ' hotel room. He exits by tip-toeing over his belongings. Downstairs, in lobby storage, the hotel staff is holding another suitcase full of his Warriors gear. There's not exactly room for another. Asked in mid-October to describe the state of his current living conditions, he exhaled. "Oh s-," Williams grinned. "Brother. First and foremost, I got a monitor set up for my PlayStation. That has to go up there. On a desk." Priorities are simple at the moment. The 26-year-old Williams signed with the Warriors in late August, and has given Golden State's bench a shot in the arm. He has yet to find permanent residence in the Bay Area. That said, he is also on a non-guaranteed, veteran-minimum NBA contract. And he is also picky. Those two things don't mesh well, when approaching the current San Francisco housing market. Williams' parents gave him an informal deadline: find a spot by Nov. 1. By Sunday night, he had yet to move out of the hotel. "That's like a parent-type thing," Williams said Sunday. "Like, ‘Get your s- right! Get your s- together!'' Eventually, he will find a lease. In half a year he may have to toss his suitcases into another hotel room in another city. Such is life on one-year deals. Williams knows that better than most. Six years ago, he was a former five-star prospect who flamed out at Arizona amid knee issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, trying to chart out his next options with former high school teammate Taj Regans and another friend. What should I do? Should I go back to college? Should I try the G League?  "After leaving that conversation," Regans recalled, "the understanding was – he was finna bet on himself." This is all Williams has had, really. He found himself sitting and waiting this summer for an eventual one-year prove-it deal in Golden State, after trying to prove it for two years in the G League and three years rising to an eventual standard contract with the Mavericks. Williams' Warriors deal didn't kick in for $1.4 million until he made the opening-night roster, and won't kick in fully until he survives half the season by Jan. 10. That suggests he is not viewed by NBA front offices as a valuable rotation option. Williams believes differently. "I know within myself – and I'm pretty sure everybody within these walls knows – that I'm an NBA player," Williams told the Chronicle, in mid-October. "I come out here, and I show it every night." He has something, after all, that not many NBA players have. Through seven games in Golden State, Williams is becoming a fan favorite – as head coach Steve Kerr has himself observed, simply by listening to the home crowd – because of his speed. He is a 6-foot-1 dynamo, bouncing off defenders with force, accelerating and ripping through the lane and challenging taller shot-blockers with reckless abandon. In Dallas, former head coach Jason Kidd took to calling Williams the "Ferrari." "Incredible talent," Kidd told the Chronicle in mid-October, after an event at Cal for Kidd's foundation . "The adversity he's gone through – the injuries, keeps fighting. Coachable, listens. I believe he's one of the few in the league that can't be guarded, because of his speed. "And his ability to finish is – close to Ky's," Kidd said a couple sentences later, referencing Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving. Through seven games in Golden State, Williams has balanced stretches of inefficiency and out-of-control drives with legitimate boosts from the bench. After a 17-point effort against the Clippers Sunday night, Williams is averaging 11.6 points per game in 17.3 minutes, and has been a driving force in lineups that have managed to hold the tide in non-Stephen Curry minutes across a four-game Golden State win streak. In a tiny sample size, Curry is playing some of the best early-season basketball of his career through five games. The Warriors' star, though, actually has a negative on-off split per 100 possessions (-0.7), thanks in part to potency of units featuring a combination of rookie Yaxel Lendeborg , Brandin Podziemski , and reserves De'Anthony Melton , Georges Niang and Williams. "I think we kinda feel it when we're out there," Williams told the Chronicle, after a win over Denver Friday night. "That second unit, we can turn games." This doesn't work without Williams' ability to create offense from thin air. He's one of the most ferocious pound-for-pound rim assailants in the NBA. Entering Sunday's game against the Clippers, Williams ranked second in the NBA in free-throw attempts per-36 minutes (10.8) after finishing 12th in the NBA last season in Dallas. Such aggressiveness does not come without stumbles. At times, Williams looks like he's playing stuck in sport mode, and will launch ill-advised drives in transition instead of slowing pace. This will make for a season-long back-and-forth for Kerr, who has built his entire offseason teaching around cutting down Golden State's turnovers. "I think this is a great step for Brandon," Kerr said, after a practice in early October. "He hasn't really made it in the league yet. Like, solidified his spot in the league. And in order for him to do that, he has to make those decisions, and understand the risk-reward, and make the simple passes. "The good news is, he can do things that most people can't," Kerr continued. "His explosiveness off the dribble, his speed in transition, he can get us a lot of easy hoops. But he's got to recognize – he is the backup point guard. He is the ballhandler coming off the bench, and there's a lot of responsibility that comes in that role, and a big part of that responsibility is ball security." These Warriors need Williams in motion, though. They need creation. The veterans know it. In Denver last week, Williams came off a couple ball-screens and passed up looks against deep-dropping Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. Both Curry and Draymond Green urged Williams to be aggressive, as he recalled. The entire locker room, Williams said, is telling him to be himself. It has gotten him this far, after all. "They brought me here for a reason," Williams said. "As much as I have to get used to the Warriors' system, and just get used to all those guys and stuff like that, they have to do the same for me." Subscribe There’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢. This article originally published at Brandon Williams providing Warriors' bench with some sizzle. So when can he unpack his bags? .