Dwight Howard lost a lot of friends and supporters during his curious ride out of Orlando. But if one of those severed relationships was with Deron Williams, Howard, frankly, doesn’t care. “It’s my life so if he’s upset because I made a decision for me, so be it,” Howard said.
Brooklyn Nets point guard Deron Williams and VP of AMEX Sports & Entertainment Alex Chang discuss Williams’ partnership with American Express.
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Brook Lopez is currently off to the best start of his career, and this type of production would put him in line to have the best season of his young career.
He’s currently averaging 18.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.6 points per game. On top of that, he’s shooting 57 percent from the floor.
All of this has been done in just 29 minutes, 6 seconds per game, the lowest of his career (discounting the five games he played in 2011-12).
Lopez has the most talent around him this season than he’s ever had on the Brooklyn Nets, but his successes this season can be attributed to Deron Williams.
Williams has the potential to make Lopez an All-Star.
Williams and Lopez have been executing the pick-and-roll to near-perfection over the first few games this season.
Lopez is the ideal candidate at center to run the pick-and-roll. He’s 7′ tall and capable of setting very strong picks. He’s also pretty quick off the screen. This, and his athleticism in the paint, make him a perfect candidate for Williams.
Williams, the other half of the pick-and-roll, has the ability to draw the defense away during the play. He draws both defenders up, making it very easy for Lopez to make a break for the basket.
Williams’ superb passing will also propel Lopez to more notoriety.
The two have been teammates since mid-way through the 2010-11 season, so Lopez is accustomed to Williams’ ability to pass. The difference this season lies in the support system on offense.
With a few more players capable of scoring, defenses can’t play as tight on just Williams and Lopez. Being that the defenses have to play a bit more spread out, Williams can capitalize and execute his great passes.
Williams has averaged 9.1 assists per game over the course of his career. While he’s not the most flashy passer in the NBA, he knows how to feed his teammates the ball.
Though he’s only averaging 7.7 assists per game this season, Williams could be encouraged to pass even more as the season progresses. With new weapons at his disposal—both in the starting lineup and on the bench—he could get comfortable looking to pass a little more than he shoots.
This would give Lopez even more opportunities to score.
Lopez and Williams have proven themselves to be a dynamic duo so far this season, and there’s plenty of reason to expect more of the same in the coming months.
The more the two work together, the more comfortable they will get distributing the ball back and forth. With this in mind, we could see a lot of Williams-to-Lopez in 2012-13.
Lopez should be an all-star this season, and most of that will be because of the contributions of his point guard.
*All statistics as of Friday, November 16, 2012
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As it turns out, Deron Williams’ ankle is just fine — and Joe Johnson’s shot isn’t lost forever. The proclaimed best backcourt in the NBA lived up to its billing, combining for 51 points to lead Brooklyn to an easy victory, 114-101, over the Cavaliers.
Nets coach Avery Johnson has called Gerald Wallace the second most important player on the team, behind Deron Williams, because he is key to the team’s defense.
Lastly, an important question we’ve all been wondering. If there was a zombie takeover of Brooklyn, and you had to choose one teammate — current or ex — to fight them off, who are you taking?
Oh, no question. Reggie Evans. He’s tough. He’s crazy. He’d have my back in any situation. You don’t want someone who’s going to run away and leave you when those zombies are coming at you. Reggie, he’d be there ’til the end. I know he’d be fighting every last one with me.
— Deron Williams, making an awful lot of sense in an interview with Peter Schrager of GQ.com . Wait, the best way to fight zombies is to squeeze their nards and/or play dead when they get near you, right?
This leads to an interesting question — which NBA player would you most like to have fighting alongside you in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland? The answer, to me, is clearly Minnesota Timberwolves center Nikola Pekovic, the present-day NBA’s most perfect combination of brawn and destructive force, who’s been looking a bit more spry since cutting some weight this offseason, too, which would make him a more nimble fighter. That said, there are no wrong answers (save, obviously, for Eddy Curry), so let’s hear yours in the comments.
Coming into the 2012-13 season, the Brooklyn Nets had high hopes and were talking a big game.
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov called the New York Knicks the “second team in New York” (on FOX 5, via ESPN New York), and even Hall of Famer Charles Barkley proclaimed the Nets to be the “best team in New York” (per NY Daily News).
This seemed fairly reasonable, as the Nets had acquired Joe Johnson‘s max contract from the Atlanta Hawks, which helped convince Olympic gold medalist Deron Williams to re-sign with the team. Ostensibly, this gave them one of the best backcourt tandems in the NBA.
But over the first three games of the season, the Nets have disappointed on their way to a 1-2 record. While it’s a very small sample size, their performances haven’t included outlying factors and anomalies. They have simply played poorly.
On opening night at Barclays Center, the Nets won 107-100, but they struggled to put away the Toronto Raptors, an improved team that is still expected to finish last in the Atlantic division.
Two evenings later, the Nets frittered away a 22-point lead with under 10 minutes left in the third quarter. From there, they were outscored 58-25 and lost 107-96 to a Minnesota Timberwolves team missing Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love.
The Nets were out-rebounded 19 to 4 in the fourth quarter. And that’s without Kevin Love.
And on November 7, the Nets were blown off the court by the Miami Heat, 103-73.
While it’s still extremely early and they will certainly play better going forward, this is not the start that the Nets or their fans wanted to see. They’ve been inconsistent on offense and porous on defense.
It will take 20 games to see who this Nets team really is, but the first three games have yielded some lessons and highlighted areas that need fixing. Here are six early surprises from the Nets tremendously talented, handsomely paid backcourt.
The bar is set for the Nets. And it’s pretty high. Before his Nets played the Raptors in their Brooklyn debut, the owner lauded Deron Williams as the league’s best point guard and his expensive team as one “that can put together the great story of a championship.”
Nets general manager Billy King confirmed Thursday that Deron Williams has a painful but “manageable” bone spur in his left ankle that will likely require surgery after the season.
Nets general manager Billy King confirmed an MRI revealed Deron Williams has bone spurs in his left ankle, and will probably have to undergo offseason surgery to have it “cleaned up” as a result.