LIMPING AWAY: Deron Williams (right) limps off the court during the Nets’ game against the Bulls on Feb. 1 at Barclays Center. With inflammation in both ankles, the point guard will sit out until after the All-Star break. (Neil Miller)
INDIANAPOLIS — When Nets general manager Billy King traded for Deron Williams two years ago, he proudly proclaimed he had the best point guard in the NBA. The Nets happily ponied up nearly $100 million dollars to sign Williams to a five-year max contract, ensuring he would be the face of the franchise as it moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn.
They did that thinking they would be coming to Brooklyn with the league’s No. 1 point guard leading their team. Instead, Williams has been disappointing this season, playing below the level of which both he and the Nets think he’s capable as he has dealt with a variety of injuries.
But even as Williams missed last night’s game in order to remain in New York and receive platelet rich plasma treatment to relieve inflammation in the joint linings of both his ankles, King said he still believes his point guard can regain his place among the league’s elite floor generals.
“This year he’s not having the best year, but I do [believe he can regain his form],” King said before the Nets beat the Pacers, 89-84 in overtime last night. “I’ve seen it. He’s done it.
Perhaps, but Williams hasn’t done it this year. After receiving a cortisone shot to relieve inflammation in his left ankle during training camp, he has noticeably lacked the lift and explosion to be the player he had been in the past, including last year with the Nets when he averaged 21 points and 8.7 assists per game while playing on a team with very little talent around him.
After the Nets committed over $330 million in future contracts to surround Williams with the necessary talent to become a contender in the Eastern Conference, it was expected he would take his game to another level, and become the player he was in Utah, when he and Chris Paul had a legitimate argument as to which was the league’s best point guard.
But Williams, who also will miss tomorrow’s home match against the Nuggets — the Nets’ final game before the All-Star break — has looked far from that caliber of player this season. He is averaging 16.7 points and 7.6 assists in 50 games, and has spent many nights looking closer to an ordinary player than an elite one.
“He’s frustrated because he knows he’s not playing like he knows he’s capable of playing,” King said. “This will give him a chance to get some time off, get some rest and get back to playing.
“He hasn’t had the same explosiveness that he had last year, so obviously there’s something that’s going to affect him.”
In order to back up his belief that he thinks Williams can return to the league’s elite, King referred to the tumultuous season Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks had last year, when Anthony endured injuries and questions of whether his team was better off without him. After that sub-par campaign, Anthony has put together arguably the best season of his career so far this year.
“I think the same questions were asked last year about Carmelo Anthony when [the Knicks] were struggling and people were writing him off, saying ‘Is he the same player?’
“I think he bounced back.”
The Nets had originally planned to have Williams undergo the treatment this weekend during the All-Star break, rather than miss any games. But after Tony Parker and the Spurs came into Barclays Center and dominated the Nets on Sunday night, the decision was made to have Williams get the treatment sooner.
King said Williams will spend the rest of the week resting and working out in a pool in order to keep off his ankles as much as possible. King said he hopes the rest will help rejuvenate Williams’ game after the break.
“It has been bothering him all year,” King said. “We were going to do it at the All-Star break and we talked to the doctors and Deron and it was like, ‘Why don’t we give him the full week so we can do it and give him a full week and time to recover.’ So we decided to do it [Sunday] night.”