Many former NBA stars love to overstate how well they’d do if they were still playing in the league today but Deron Williams doesn’t fall in that category. Williams was present for the NBA Cup Final in Las Vegas where Score asked him what he would average in the NBA today at his age if given a 10-day contract.
“One point per game, one rebound, no zero rebounds, and.. two assists,” Williams said. “My knees don’t work, I got no breaks, I can’t, no. I can’t get by nobody, I can’t stop nobody. The only thing that’s going for me is they don’t play defense nowadays.”
The interviewer thought Williams would put up at least 10 points and eight assists a game but the 40-year-old realizes he won’t get to play too many minutes.
“I’m not gonna play that long,” Williams stated. “I’m gonna play two minutes. At the end of the game they gonna be chanting my name to bring me in off the bench.”
Williams last played in the NBA all the way back in the 2016-17 season for the Dallas Mavericks and the Cleveland Cavaliers. He averaged 11.0 points, 2.3 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.1 blocks per game in that campaign for the two teams.
It has been more than seven years since Williams put up those numbers and the interviewer was certainly being a bit too kind with those projections. The guard would probably end up averaging a couple of points and assists if he played today.
If you put Williams in his prime in today’s NBA, though, he would excel. From 2006-07 to 2012-13, he averaged 18.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 9.7 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game.
Williams, who was selected with the third pick of the 2005 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz, had it all. He was big, strong, and fast, and was one of the premier playmakers in the NBA. Williams could even score at a good clip and there was a debate at one point as to whether he was better than Chris Paul. You could have made a very good argument too that he was.
Unfortunately, Williams’ peak didn’t last quite as long. Injuries played a part in that but he also reportedly did not have a great attitude. He ended his career having made just three All-Star teams and two All-NBA teams. You wonder how much more Williams could have achieved if he had the same drive as someone like Paul.
Deron Williams Believes He Is Ringless Because Of Kobe Bryant And The Los Angeles Lakers
Williams enjoyed the best years of his career with the Jazz, leading the franchise to multiple 50-win seasons in his time there. They were never able to break through and win it all, though, failing to even make it to the NBA Finals. There is a certain team to blame for that, as Williams spoke on how Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers kept him ringless.
“I think if it wasn’t for them, we had a chance to win a championship every year. It just, we couldn’t get past Kobe and, honestly, it was probably the big, the big three of power. I saw Andrew Bynum and, and, um, Lamar Odom, like just the, the, the length and, um, the height that they had, it was just, just made it tough for us.”
The Lakers beat the Jazz in the 2008, 2009, and 2010 playoffs. Utah just could not get over that hurdle and to be fair, no one else in the Western Conference was able to do it either. That Bryant-led Lakers team was just that special.
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