Sunday, March 1, 2015

Could Deron Williams Become Himself Again?

Photo credit: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/deron6.jpg?w=720&h=480&crop=1
Deron Williams has been a huge disappointment thus far in his tenure with the Brooklyn Nets. When he signed his brand new contract in the summer of 2012 he was number nine in ESPN's player rankings. I still can't believe it. Nine out of the 500 or so players. I mean nine! Since then his play has been nothing impressive. In fact it's been mediocre at best. In game two of last years playoffs he scored 0 points. This had to be Williams lowest point. In the off season he had surgery on both his ankles hoping to come into this season the healthiest he's been since his last year in New Jersey.
Williams looked promising putting up numbers good enough to notch him eastern conference player of the week for week one. Since then his production has gone down. He has also dealt with injuries along the way. Heading into the all-star break Williams was only a shell of his former self. 
After the all-star break Williams has played in a way that I haven't seen since his last year in New Jersey. He was putting up decent scoring numbers while tallying up double digit assists each night. It seemed like Williams was finally contributing to the team again. Then he went into Dallas and put up 25 points. He went 4 for 6 from three. Not only did he shoot well, but he shot in rhythm. Each shot he took looked like it was going in. Also his body language was good. He looked comfortable taking shot and was willing to shoot. Something that I haven't seem in Williams in a long time. His crossovers were smooth, but also very explosive. He was able to take guys off the dribble to the rim. And once he got that going he was able to pull off hesitation moves to get an open jump shot. 
I hope that Williams continues to play this way and make a great playoff push. 
I've been waiting for Williams to have game like last night because sometimes all it takes is the ball going through the hoop to get your confidence back. Even if he doesn't have the best shooting night tomorrow, I want him to continue to shoot. As we all saw last night he still have the explosive and quick dribble moves to get his defender off balance now all he needs is some shooting confidence. 

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