The Rock for the Jazz

Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams is one of the most feared guards in the NBA for his ability to create not only for himself but for his teammates as well. This article from the Desert News gives alot of great insight into the Jazz leader. Here are some excerpts from the article:

Says coach Jerry Sloan:

"Every team that plays in the championship usually has a guy that can beat you 1-on-1," he said.

"We've got a guy," added Sloan, whose Jazz are still looking for their first title in franchise history, "that's pretty close to being that way most of the time, and I think he'll get better and better as time goes on."

Teammate Ronnie Brewer:

"Just knowing guys spots, getting guys shots, getting me involved, getting C.J. (Miles) involved, getting Booz, Paul (Millsap), A.K.," he said. "I mean, he's doing a phenomenal jump of doing that.

"There's been times when he can score 30, 40 points and get 10 assists — but he distributes the ball well," he added. "Second in the league (behind only New Orleans' Chris Paul) in assists. So, I think that's the biggest improvement for him. He's getting everybody involved, and becoming more of a leader."

"As a player, you're gonna develop over years. You expect that out of him, because he's such a great talent," Brewer said. "But I think he's running this squad like he's supposed to."

Sloan doesn't want Williams to be a one-dimensional, do-it-alone type.

"Point guards don't always have to take the big shot," he said when asked recently if Williams was the Jazz's obvious go-to guy in late-game scenarios. "They pass it to the guy that's open."

"When (NBA all-time assists leader) John Stockton was here for 19 years, the idea was to run our offense, get the ball to somebody who's open. If it's not there, you take the shot.

"That's what execution's about — not just trying to break one individual down all the time," he added. "I thought that's what always gave us a chance to win a lot of games."

Williams readily concurs.

"We're a much better team," he said, echoing what he's suggested several times this season, "when we're helping each other out, playing defense, sharing the basketball."

"He hasn't said anything about a shot I've taken the whole year," Williams said of Sloan, "so, yeah, I've got a green light, I guess. You can say that.

"But he knows I don't like taking bad shots. I get mad at myself when I take bad shots," he added. "I think I have a good feel for the game, and situations that are going on in the game, and how to try to get everybody involved, and balance that with scoring as well."

Deron Williams: From two years ago....

Deron Williams never expressed envy toward his more decorated teammate at The Colony High School.

But Williams remembered every honor that was bestowed upon Bracey Wright but not him. He remembered every time a high-profile college coach didn't ask about him during a visit to The Colony's campus.

Williams, a pass-first point guard without a flashy game, didn't complain about being the second fiddle, nor did he begrudge his friend. He simply stored every perceived slight and used them to fuel his obsession of fulfilling the immense potential he knew he had.

"It motivated me a lot to see the attention Bracey was getting," Williams said. "He deserved it, but at the same time, I wanted that same attention. It made me work harder. It made me want it a lot more."

Five years later, the national spotlight has found Williams. He's led the Utah Jazz to a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals against the Golden State Warriors, who are suddenly media darlings after their historic first-round upset of the Mavericks.

Deron Williams ranked second behind Phoenix's Steve Nash with 9.3 assists per game this season.

The duel with Dallas killer Baron Davis represents an opportunity for Williams to prove he's one of the NBA's elite point guards in only his second pro season.

Williams had 31 points and eight assists in Game 1. He spent most of Game 2 in foul trouble while Davis dominated with 36 points. But Williams excelled down the stretch. He had nine points and six assists after the beginning of the fourth quarter, hitting a 10-foot floater to force overtime.

"Deron Williams is going to be a household name after this series," Charles Barkley told the TNT audience after Game 1.

The silent star

Williams was somewhat of an afterthought in the most star-studded class of basketball prospects to come through the area. Wright was joined by Lincoln's Chris Bosh and Cedar Hill's Daniel Horton in the McDonald's All-American Game, which Williams watched from home, determined to prove the selection committee erred by omitting him. There was debate whether Bryan Hopkins, Bosh's acrobatic sidekick on a mythical national championship team, was a better point guard than Williams.

The bumper crop of local talent sparked Williams' competitiveness. He considered the other stars, especially Wright, as measuring sticks.

"Now, everything has changed," said Wright, a shooting guard who will become a free agent this summer after playing sparingly the last two seasons for the Minnesota Timberwolves. "I kind of see myself doing the same thing with him."

All the tools to succeed

Williams averaged 16.2 points and ranked second behind the Suns' Steve Nash with 9.3 assists per game this season. At 6-3, 205 pounds, he has a rare combination of strength and quickness for a point guard. But his best attributes are intangibles, according to those who have helped shape his game.

Former The Colony coach Tommy Thomas and ex-Mavericks point guard Derek Harper rave about Williams' desire and work ethic. Thomas said Williams never left school until the gym was locked for the night. Harper, whose son, Darius, played on several youth teams with Williams, said he always knew Williams had a chance to be special because of his eagerness to improve.

Utah coach Jerry Sloan says Williams' intelligence is one of the biggest keys to his success. That's high praise from a grumpy guy who coached all-time assists leader John Stockton for his entire career. Williams works out with Stockton in Washington each off-season and picks his brain about such topics as the intricacies of Sloan's offensive sets.

Williams also has a feel for knowing when to distribute the ball and when to take over a game. He was the third-leading scorer on Illinois' national runner-up team in 2005, but he scored 31 points to spark a comeback over Arizona that clinched a Final Four berth.

"As a point guard, you have to be sort of a silent assassin in a lot of ways," Harper said. "You have to have that kind of attitude. That's his attitude. It's very deceiving from the standpoint that he looks almost like he's shy and quiet, but he has a killer instinct inside of him."

Staying hungry

Williams, whom the Jazz picked third overall in the 2005 draft, hasn't had any problem being motivated since he became a multimillionaire.

Sloan didn't make Williams a regular starter until the final two months of his rookie season. Chris Paul, the point guard chosen fourth overall by the New Orleans Hornets in 2005, lit up the league right away. Reporters often mentioned this to Williams, who received the only first-place Rookie of the Year vote that didn't go to Paul.

"I thought I could do some of these things last year if I was given the same opportunity, but that's not how it went," Williams said. "I just wanted to have a good summer. I had a productive summer, worked hard, got in the best shape of my life. My confidence level is definitely 10 times higher than it was last year. I'm out there playing free, not worrying about if I make a mistake, I might have to come out or this or that. I can just go out there and play."

Williams has quieted the critics who pounded the Jazz for passing on Paul – "Keep doing it," he says – but he still doesn't think he gets the recognition he's earned. Williams says he considers it a sign of disrespect every time an opposing team's public-address announcer mispronounces his first name; it's pronounced "Dare-in." And he wasn't happy about playing in the Rookie-Sophomore game instead of the All-Star Game in Las Vegas.

"He knew he'd played good enough to be an All-Star," said Thomas, who works for the agency that represents Williams and Wright. "He'll never gripe about it. He never said one negative word about it. All he did was lock it in his mind and say, 'There's some people out there who don't think I'm good enough.' "

His Time

Utah Jazz guard Deron Williams has worked his way into being one of the top 5 point guards in the NBA. After finding a couple of articles on him, it is easy to see why he has gotten to the point of being an all-star caliber player. Here is one of the articles on Williams, I will post the second later on. This article is about him being the leader of the 2005 national champ runner-up Fighting Illini and now with the Jazz:



HIS TIME

After taking a backseat during high school and college so his teammates could collect accolades, Deron Williams makes his mark with the Jazz as one of the best players in the NBA.

By Kyle Flanagan

You would find it a great challenge to find anybody in the United States who isn’t aware of Utah’s rising point guard Deron Williams.

Such was not always the case.

Williams, a native of the Dallas, Texas area, attended The Colony High School. While at The Colony, he began a reputation as a player who had the skills and the potential to eventually play at the highest level.

The only thing keeping Williams out of the spotlight in high school was the all-encompassing shadow of The Colony superstar Bracey Wright.

“I didn’t get all the accolades in high school. I guess I didn’t score enough or whatever, but my team still won and that’s what I cared about.” Williams said. “A lot of coaches noticed what I did even though people who did rankings and stuff didn’t.”

Wright turned his high school McDonald’s All-American honors into a scholarship at Indiana University and the eventual second round pick of the 2005 NBA Draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Former coach of The Colony High School, Tommy Thomas, knows that without Williams, the careers of Wright and others who played around him may have not blossomed quite as much.

“His role was more of making guys around him better.” Thomas said. “He gave Bracey an opportunity to be a McDonald’s All-American, and at Illinois he gave Dee Brown and Luther Head opportunities to be NCAA All-Americans. Boozer and Okur have become NBA All-Stars and they weren’t before they played with Deron.”

Williams escaped the shadow of Wright and after a successful career at The Colony High School, joined the Illinois University Fighting Illini for the 2002-03 season.

Enter two new shadows, Mr. Chicago Dee Brown and the exciting Luther Head.

Williams spent two seasons taking a back seat to the very personable Brown and the athletic Head in the media and in the public. But Illini coach Bruce Weber was always well aware that the driving force of his successful Illini was Williams, despite the lack of recognition.

After the impressive Illini run that eventually led to the National Championship game in the 2005 NCAA Tournament, Brown and Illinois teammate Luther Head received First Team All-American honors, Weber received coach of the year honors. While eating at a restaurant on Final Four weekend in St. Louis, the Illini team saw the honors for Brown, Head and Weber being discussed on television, with no mention of Williams to be found.

“(After seeing the announcements) I’m looking at Deron and I’m thinking, man we don’t need any selfishness or jealously to pop up here while we are trying to win a National Championship.” Weber said. “I went right over to Deron and I said, ‘you know you belong on there and you are the reason we are winning’ he kind of came back and said ‘coach, all I care about is that we’re here, I will get my just due when the time comes.”

Nobody would argue that Brown and Head weren’t major contributors to the run the Illini made in the tournament, but Weber knew how critical it was to his team’s success to have Williams on the floor.

“We won because of Deron.” Weber added. “Dee got the publicity because of his personality and Luther got some attention because he was so explosive athletically. But when it came down to it, Deron was the guy that made us go. He didn’t crave to be in the lime light, all he cared about was winning.”

Williams got his just due when he was made the third overall pick of the Utah Jazz in the 2005 NBA Draft, with him he brought an impressive resume that gave the Jazz confidence that he could fill the point guard void left by the legendary John Stockton.

Now in his third season in the NBA, Williams has earned the respect of some of the best players in the game today.

“He’s been solid all year. He’s really been unbelievable man.” Spurs big man Tim Duncan said after a Jazz 90-64 win over San Antonio. “They had chants of MVP out there and they are well deserved, he’s been tremendous since he stepped in the league and I have a lot of respect for what he does.”

So what is it that makes opponents respect and fear Williams on the court?

There is a certain demeanor and attitude on the court that is visible in Williams when the game clock is winding down and the Jazz are in need of a clutch play. This demeanor and drive on the face of Williams is what leaves Jazz opponents nervous and what makes Jazz fans, coaches and players confident.

“I just try to keep calm and cool because even if you do something good or do something bad, the game still has to be played and finished.” Williams added. “I try to keep it even kill either way.”

However, this calm and collective “bring it on” attitude is not something Williams has developed in just his time with the Jazz.

In fact, fans and coaches of The Colony High School knew who they wanted to be in control with the game on the line.

“I trusted him so much his senior year.” Thomas said. “He knew what I wanted and sometimes he knew what I wanted before I did.”

Williams had no problem carrying that attitude over from high school to his time with the Illini.

“There’s no doubt, that (Williams’ demeanor) is why were able to win Big Ten Championships and advance in the NCAA tournament to the National Championship game.” Weber said. “He would make the plays, not always making the shot, but getting the ball to the right people.”

Weber praised the work ethic of his young point guard and credited the time Williams spent after practice as a major contributor to the development of the now NBA superstar.

“I just continued at Illinois, continued to try and get better and do the things to make my teams successful.” Williams said. “A point guard is judged on wins and losses and we only lost two games my senior year and it set me up perfect.”

Now with the Jazz, the third-year point guard has used his confidence and will to succeed on the court to lead the Jazz to a second consecutive playoff appearance.

As one of only 18 players in the league averaging a double-double this season, Williams’ 19.0 points and 10.6 assists per game are proof that he has escaped the shadows of his high school and collegiate teammates and has began casting his own shadows.

Adding to his shadow is the fact that this season Williams accomplished something only two other players in NBA history have (Magic Johnson and Kevin Johnson) by recording over 1,500 points (1,540), handing out over 800 assists (860) and shooting over .500 (.508) from the field in a single season.

To those who knew him in his younger days, Williams is becoming much more than just a NBA all-star caliber player he is becoming an all-star caliber person.

“That was my question mark, would he have the maturity.” Weber added. “He has defenitly developed as a player, but he has also developed as a person and it’s a great feeling to watch that happen.”