When the Nets signed Deron Williams to a five-year, $98 million contract in July 2012, making him the face of the franchise’s move to Brooklyn, they thought they were locking up one of the NBA’s best players and arguably its best point guard.
Two years later, they have a player who is heading into the summer searching for his confidence, as well as a way to get over the ankle issues that have plagued him over the last 24 months, after, by his own admission, failing to live up to the standard of play he expected to provide.
“I feel like I’ve kind of let people down, so I don’t like feeling like that,” Williams said Thursday, as he and the Nets went through the motions of locker room cleanout day following their season-ending loss to the Heat on Wednesday night in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. “I take my job serious, I work hard in the offseason, I work hard every day. It’s just real frustrating not to be able to play how I’m capable of playing.”
How Williams is capable of playing at this point, though, is a matter up for serious debate. He has been a fine player for the Nets each of the last two seasons, but they didn’t give him a max contract two summers ago and make him the centerpiece of a $190 million-plus roster — the most expensive in NBA history — in order for him to be just fine. They did so for Williams to be the “engine” of the team, as Nets coach Jason Kidd referred to him many times last summer after being hired, and again during the preseason.
Williams has spent the last two years in need of a tune-up, mainly because of nagging injuries to both of his troublesome ankles.
After dealing with synovitis in both ankles last season, he suffered separate sprains in each ankle this season, forcing him to miss 18 games, and has had two rounds of platelet rich plasma treatment and several rounds of cortisone shots in each ankle over the last two years.
Now he’s scheduled to have an MRI exam on both ankles Friday, and said he will meet with the Nets’ foot and ankle specialist, Dr. Martin O’Malley, on Monday to see if surgery is required to try and finally put his ankle woes behind him.
“Both years have been tough on me,” Williams said. “I just feel like I haven’t been able to play the way I want to since I’ve been here, really. And so it’s just been tough, it’s been tough to swallow, but hopefully I can figure things out and get back to playing like I want to play.”
In addition to his ankles, if Williams wants to get back to being the player the Nets desperately need him to be, he’ll need to rehab his confidence, as well. He spoke candidly several times this season about how his confidence had sagged due to his ongoing injury issues, which left him incapable of doing the things he did when he deservedly made the last two U.S. Olympic teams and earned trips to three All-Star Games.
“I used to step on the court and feel like I was the best player no matter who I played against,” Williams said. “So I’ve got to get back to that.
“Even if I’m not the best player on the court, I’ve got to feel like I am.”
That feeling clearly wasn’t evident when the Nets needed him most, in the fourth quarter during the playoffs, when they struggled as a whole and Williams did in particular. He shot just 5-for-24 (20.8 percent) overall, 2-for-11 (18.2 percent) from 3-point range and went just 1-for-7 in the fourth quarter of the Nets’ final two losses of the season in Games 4 and 5 against the Heat.
The most likely course of action seems to be that the Nets will bring back their core for another run — which includes re-signing free agent Paul Pierce, getting Kevin Garnett back for the final year of his contract and hoping for both Brook Lopez, who missed the final few months of the season with a fractured fifth metatarsal in his right foot, and Williams to be healthy.
But unless the Nets can get Williams back on track from both a mental and physical standpoint, this team’s chances of advancing further in the playoffs than its short but competitive conference semifinal loss to the Heat seem remote.
“I couldn’t do what I wanted to, I can’t finish the way I want to finish,” Williams said of his ankle woes. “You start thinking about things.
“The main thing was just confidence-wise, it’s hard to get back to where I was.”
If the Nets want to get to where they want to go with Williams as their point guard, they need him to find a way to do just that.