Chicago Bulls: Could Jay Williams Have Been Derrick Rose Before Derrick Rose?
The Chicago Bulls lucked out big time when they landed the top pick in the 2008 NBA draft.
With that pick, the team chose University of Memphis point guard Derrick Rose, who grew up on Chicago's South Side.
Rose would quickly blossom into Chicago's best hoopster since legends Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen donned the Bulls red and black.
In his debut season in the Windy City, Rose garnered Rookie of the Year honors and led his new team to the playoffs, where they lost to the defending champion Boston Celtics in the first round.
In year No. 2, he became an All-Star and steered Chicago to the postseason once again, although it was eliminated by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
This season, D-Rose was named to the All-Star squad once again, this time as a starter, and is widely considered the league's best point guard and the leading candidate to capture the MVP award.
But more importantly, he has taken the Bulls from a low-seeded playoff team the previous two seasons to a title contender for the first time since the team won six titles in the 1990s.
Rose, however, wasn't the first point guard in the last 10 years who the Bulls drafted with a top two pick. Duke's Jay Williams was selected second overall in 2002, right after the Houston Rockets took Yao Ming.
Williams was coming off a spectacular collegiate career. He led the Blue Devils to a national championship as a sophomore and then earned both the Naismith and Wooden awards as a junior, his final season at Duke.
The Bulls expected Williams to eventually do what Rose has done: become the franchise superstar point guard and lead the team back into title contention.
Williams would put together a decent—definitely not great—rookie season in Chicago. Although he was inconsistent, he did show a flash of greatness in his seventh regular-season game, recording a triple-double with 26 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists versus New Jersey.
Many believed the young and talented Williams had a bright future in the league. But an event that took place during the offseason following his rookie season changed things dramatically.
On the night of Jun. 19, 2003, while not wearing a helmet, he crashed his motorcycle into a streetlight on the North Side of Chicago. Williams sustained a serious leg injury, ending his NBA career after just one year.
If Williams had never wrecked his bike, what kind of player would he have become?
Would he be considered one of the game's top point guards today like Rose?
Looking at Williams' less-than-brilliant rookie stats (9.5 points and 4.7 assists per game), one would think that he wouldn't have ever turned out to be much of a star in the league.
However, those numbers are really close to those of Deron Williams as a rookie (10.8 PPG and 4.5 APG). Yeah, that's right. Deron didn't blow anybody away as a rookie, but today, you can make a case for him being the league's best point guard.
If Jay had stayed healthy, there's a chance Rose wouldn't have ever become a Bull and would be hooping for some other NBA franchise.
Once drawing comparisons to Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, J-Will just might have become the superstar point guard many had predicted. He also might have been just another average player who the Bulls would have traded a long time ago.
No one will ever know.
