Deron Williams Erasing Memories of Injury-Plagued 2013-14 with Hot Start
BROOKLYN — Deron Williams isn't back. He was never gone.
Williams plummeted out of the "top point guard rankings," a list he clearly didn't subscribe to or care about, after experiencing the worst year of his career last season. Still, the change in public perception wasn't all that unwarranted, as D-Will posted his worst-ever numbers while playing on exactly zero healthy ankles during 2013-14.
After offseason surgery on both ankles, Williams has transformed, and through six games is putting up the production we used to expect from a guy who was once described as one of the world's top two floor generals. It may be early, but he is averaging 19.5 points and 7.0 assists in 38.2 minutes a night. He's posting a 49-32-87 shooting line with a bubbly 59 percent true shooting.
Those are throwback D-Will numbers. Except "Throwback D-Will" is somewhat of an offensive moniker, considering last year is starting to look more and more like an outlier than a constant with each step Williams takes on the court.
His moves are quicker. His actions are more decisive. His command of the offense is more fluid.
Who would've thought having two ankles to stand on was actually important for a basketball player?
It's not over for Deron Williams. It never was. It only seemed that way.
"It was hard for me last year," Williams explained over the weekend. "I missed so much time early. I was trying to figure things out. This year, it's just different. I had the whole preseason with the guys. I was here every day."
Injuries don't only affect players on the court. They also disrupt a routine. Williams may have been able to play a sour 64 games a year ago, but even the days after weren't the same.
"I wouldn't be able to come in and shoot shots the next day like this," Williams said after an intense shooting workout at the Nets' practice facility in New Jersey. "I would be in so much pain that I wouldn't be able to do that."
And that's where Williams' game failed him. If practice makes perfect, then it makes sense why his performance last year was far from flawless.
"That makes a difference, as far as rhythm," he continued. "This is my job. I need to be able to practice. I need to be able to get up extra shots."
With that, the confidence exuding from today's D-Will is apparent. You don't need to get inside his head to see it. You just need to switch on your TV, turn on YES Network and watch a far more decisive point guard running the Nets offense.
It's especially apparent in the pick-and-roll game, where Williams has regained actual decisiveness.
"It's a little bit of both," Williams so boldly stated, when asked if his assertiveness was more about health or feeling comfortable in a different offense. "I just want to be aggressive, be a leader, be whatever this team needs me to be."
The Nets barely ran screen-and-rolls under Jason Kidd, and when they did, it looked messy. It was easy to stymie Brooklyn's pick-and-roll attack because deterring Williams from penetrating or shooting was simple. As long as a big man rotated over to cut off some semblance of a driving lane, Williams backed out.
That's why big men sagging back during pick-and-roll coverage was so effective against the Nets last year. Williams would take a dribble in and be too tentative to drive, so he'd either pull up or back out of the play altogether, leaving his team without much time to run another set.
Planting and changing directions was out of the question, as possible as growing a third ankle and letting that one do all the work for him. Two seasons worth of ankle issues killed the aggression.
It's certainly no coincidence that the two years in which he attempted the lowest percentage of shots in the restricted area of his career were the past couple. When you can't move, you're not getting to the rim.
Meanwhile, plays like this side pick-and-roll with Kevin Garnett—from Sunday's game against the Orlando Magic—didn't happen last year.
It's the perfect microcosm of Williams' improvement, a relatively routine play he simply couldn't make a season ago.
We weren't seeing that jump stop, which isn't possible to execute if you're numb below the calves. Or those passes. Or such deliberateness.
It wasn't Deron Williams we were watching. It was someone else. He's even cleanly admitted he was "never healthy last year."
"I tried to tell everybody that you can't play this game when you're injured, and he's been injured the last couple years," contended Nets coach Lionel Hollins. "He's healthy now."
Williams had seven assists against the Magic. Five of those came in the half-court offense. Four were out of pick-and-roll sets, and the one that didn't come directly off a pick-and-roll was during a late-in-the-clock iso Williams was forced into after a failed screen-and-roll set.
This offense is schematically different, crumpling wrinkles that Williams' old attacks in Utah used to show, and knowing that, first-year Net Jarrett Jack is hardly surprised with the return of D-Will's play.
"I wasn't here last year so I don't know what the big fuss is about the way he's playing," Jack explained. "This is how I've known him to play since he's been in the league. I'm not surprised."
Players often have this stubbornness about them, something that can either help or hurt their effectiveness. They staunchly respect reputation, what a guy has done.
It's the same characteristic that makes you wonder why certain defenders won't help off players who haven't been known as upper-echelon shooters for years. But it's also the same one which leads someone like Jack not to question a single down season from a guy of Williams' caliber.
We, the public, have this habit of reacting to what recent history tells us. Even the educated and statistically minded developed the impropriety of looking at what someone is at the moment instead of what he could be in the future. It's how you end up with a whole population of people who are shocked by the development of Klay Thompson. How preposterous that a talented 24-year-old could develop his game and stray from being just a jump shooter?
Players observe that philosophy, though. They follow it to a fault, but there's an appropriate equilibrium between the two mindsets, evaluating the present while also considering the future.
Once skills erode, our culture tends to dictate that they're gone forever. But Williams unwittingly disproved that theory best.
"I was like this before. I was the same way. I think it's just been a while since you guys have seen it."
Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade but maintains that his per-36-minute numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work at WashingtonPost.com or on ESPN's TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.
All quotes obtained firsthand. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of Nov. 10 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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