Deron Williams has played like an All-Star for the past two weeks. But the Nets point guard said he shouldn’t be headed to Houston next month based on his play over the course of the entire season.
“No,” Williams said bluntly when asked if he was having an All-Star season. When asked to elaborate, he simply said, “I just think there’s people playing better than me.”
That may have been the case during the first two months of the season, but since the calendar turned to 2013, Williams has been terrific. Including his 21 points and seven assists in last night’s 113-106 win over the Raptors, Williams is averaging 19.7 points, 8.1 assists and shooting almost 47 percent from the field during the team’s current seven-game winning streak.
For the season, he’s averaging 16.9 points and 7.6 assists, both of which would be his lowest totals since his second season in the league.
The All-Star starters will be announced tomorrow night on TNT, with Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo almost certainly set to be named as the Eastern Conference’s starting backcourt. Williams was third in the final round of voting results released to the public, but was well behind Rondo. The All-Star Game takes place Feb. 17 at the Toyota Center in Houston.
Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo, on the other hand, disagreed with his point guard’s assessment of his play.
“I consider Deron an All-Star,” Carlesimo said before the game. “I think he’s playing great.”
* The Nets were without Gerald Wallace for the second straight game last night, as the team’s starting small forward once again sat with bruised ribs suffered in a hard fall Friday night against the Suns.
Carlesimo wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Wallace, who was out on the court getting some shots up before the game, playing tonight in Atlanta.
* Andray Blatche missed the team’s morning shootaround with an undisclosed illness, but Blatche was declared available before the game by Carlesimo and looked fine, finishing with 14 points on 7-for-10 shooting.
After both played in last night’s game, Blatche and Joe Johnson are the only two players on the team who have appeared in each of the 38 games the Nets have played so far this season.