NBA

Nets cross fingers after Deron’s career-worst season

With the Nets season officially in the books, it’s time to look back at the year that was. We’ll look back at a different player each weekday, before wrapping up with the coaching staff and front office. Next up: Deron Williams

Regular season stats: Averaged 14.3 points, 2.6 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.2 blocks per game. Shot 45 percent from the field, 36.6 percent from 3-point range, 80.1 percent from the foul line in 32.2 minutes per game over 64 games (58 starts).

Playoff stats: Averaged 14.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.2 blocks per game. Shot 39.5 percent from the field, 34.0 percent from 3-point range, 80.0 percent from the foul line in 35.7 minutes per game over 12 games (12 starts).

Contractual status: Owed $19,754,465 for 2014-15 season; signed through 2015-16, with player option for 2016-17.

Season recap

After Williams averaged 22.9 points and 8.0 assists over the final 28 games of the 2012-13 regular season, he entered last summer thinking he had finally put his injury troubles behind him. Those hopes lasted less than a few months, before Williams sprained his right ankle in an offseason workout in Utah in early September and showed up at his dodgeball tournament weeks later in a walking boot. That turned out to be a precursor to what was an even more injury-plagued season than the previous one: Williams wound up playing in just 64 games – his lowest total in a non-lockout season in his career.

By season’s end, Williams would have suffered three more sprains of his left ankle, and he again tweaked his left ankle during Game 6 of the Nets’ first-round series against the Raptors, prompting him to get an anti-inflammatory and a cortisone shot.

Williams’ ankle issues greatly hampered his explosiveness all season long. Though he showed flashes of the player who was once with Chris Paul in the conversation about the top point guard in the NBA, more often he looked closer to an average floor general.

After Williams underwent a round of PRP treatment in January – which caused him to miss the team’s trip to London to play the Hawks – he did begin to show more burst, and his points, shot attempts and free throw attempts ticked upward. His numbers also were helped by playing more often with Shaun Livingston, allowing Williams to spend off the ball, focusing on his offense instead of setting up for others.

When the Nets reached the playoffs, there was a genuine question about which team had a better point guard between Williams and the Raptors’ Kyle Lowry, with many thinking the series would be determined by that matchup.

Williams put up terrific numbers in Games 1, 3 and 6, averaging 23 points per game during those Nets wins and often looking like the best player on the floor. But after landing awkwardly on his left ankle in the second half of Game 6, he struggled mightily over the rest of the playoffs, shooting a combined 36.7 percent in Game 7 of the Raptors series and the five games against the Heat, including going scoreless in Game 2 of the Miami series, missing all nine of his shots.

Outlook for next season

After the season, Williams said he felt like he’d let people down. He wound up having surgery on both ankles – an arthroscopic procedure on the left to remove a pair of bone spurs and clean out the ankle joint, and a procedure on the right to remove a loose bone fragment below his right ankle joint.

As teams always do, the Nets said the surgery was a success, and said Williams should be ready for training camp.

What kind of player they will have when training camp begins is another question. Williams has two more years – plus a player option – at more than $60 million remaining on his contract, and the Nets hope he can once again become the player they anticipated they were getting when they re-signed him to a five-year, $98 million contract in July 2012.

If the Nets want to seriously challenge the Heat next season, they need Williams to regain that level. Is he capable of doing so?

With the surgery behind him, the expectation is his ankles won’t be the same impediment they were in previous years. Now we’ll see if that was the thing holding him back from being the game-breaking player he used to be.

Tomorrow: Jason Kidd