The Jazz's bandleader
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
May 27, 2007
SALT LAKE CITY - The executive who had been so determined to bring the best
young guard on the planet to the Utah Jazz was standing in the hallway
outside the interview room at the old Delta Center, tie undone, jacket over
shoulder, shaking his head in mock assurance.
This good, this fast?
"Yeah, yeah," said Kevin O'Connor smiling, nodding over to Deron Williams,
"I knew it all along."
And then, O'Connor, Utah's vice president of basketball operations, rolled
his eyes and let out a laugh. Because as desperately as he wanted to trade
for Portland's third pick in the 2005 NBA draft to take Williams over Chris
Paul, as sold as he had been on the Illinois guard's talent and temperament
and toughness, no one could see this coming so soon on the job.
Williams has destroyed the best defense in basketball in these Western
Conference finals, running roughshod over the San Antonio Spurs for 31 points,
eight assists and five steals on Saturday night. The Jazz pounded San Antonio
109-83 in Game 3 of the West finals, and they're alive trailing two games to
one because Williams has come so far, so fast, in his brief, blurring pro
career.
The most impressive part isn't that he has gone for 30 points a game in
this series, that he gets to the basket and gets shots for himself and his
teammates against these Spurs that Steve Nash couldn't get a series ago.
No, it's the way Williams is carrying himself, the way he's leading, the way
he's hell-bent on resisting the thinking that these Jazz are too young, too
raw, to hit back on these three-time champion Spurs.
With Williams and Carlos Boozer, the next generation Stockton-and-Malone,
they keep coming and coming in this series. They won't beat the Spurs in this
best-of-seven series, but the Jazz are winning respect.
As much as anything, Williams' peerless play has downright demanded it.
"What we saw in him was a guard who understood flow, who understood tempo,
but wasn't afraid to take a shot," O'Connor said. "He wasn't afraid to take
the big shot and be blamed, or praised. When he takes the ball to the basket,
he's looking to pass. He'll shoot it, but he's looking to pass the ball."
The words come tumbling out of O'Connor good and fast when he's talking about
Williams, but in the end, he slows down and punctuates it with the ultimate
truth of the matter.
"He really wants to win."
That's it. He's a winner. As soon as O'Connor and Jerry Sloan met him at the
Chicago predraft camp two years ago, and in Salt Lake for his interview, they
knew they had to have him.
For young guards, the Spurs should be a nightmare. They're tough to beat on
the dribble, and tougher to score upon at the rim with Tim Duncan there.
Bruce Bowen had shared duty with Tony Parker on Williams in Games 1 and 2,
and it wasn't lost on Williams that the toughest, nastiest defender in
basketball had requested a bigger burden in Game 3.
"I heard he wanted to be on me more," Williams said. "I like the physical
play, you know."
In the way that so many of his peers have bemoaned Bowen's brutish behavior,
Williams never lets the Spurs' stopper believe he's getting to him. He
dismisses him with blow-by baskets, three-pointers and blink-of-the-eyes
passes. He dismisses him with a precocious wink and a smile.
"I like when Bruce grabs me, holds me," Williams said, "because I know where
he is at and I can make a move off that."
Now, Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski is determined to make Williams a major
part of the Olympic team, sold on the belief that Williams and Jason Kidd are
the kind of bigger, stronger guards necessary for international success. Even
in the NBA, where defenders aren't allowed to touch you out on the perimeter,
O'Connor is convince that the point guard is, "more valuable now" in the
league.
The whole sport is witnessing the rapid rise of Williams, who a year ago
struggled in Sloan's system. He had a hard time understanding the kind of
shape and stamina it would take to play for one of basketball's most
demanding coaches. Now, he has turned into something of an unstoppable force
in these playoffs.
"Our most important player, our engine," Utah's Gordan Giricek said.
Back in the Jazz locker room, Derek Fisher was remembering his draft class
in 1996, with Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury and Steve Nash. To different
degrees, they would become stars in the sport, with Nash and Iverson winning
MVP awards. Here's the thing, too: Iverson was spectacular, but he was no
more a point guard, a playmaker, than the man on the moon.
"Maybe other than Allen, a lot of guys in their second year were still finding
their way," Fisher said. "Even Steve wasn't even playing a lot. You think
about Darren's development from year one to year two, and it's not even just
the statistics, but his poise, his decision-making.
"He's leading our team."
When asked if he thought Williams would be competing for MVPs someday too,
Fisher was reluctant to bless him with such a burden. "He's my guy and all,
but give him some time," Fisher warned.
Give him time? No, Deron Williams keeps playing in these playoffs like he's
running out of time, and that's the genius of his drive. It's hard to believe
that he's going to win this series, but he's going to win America's respect.
"A lot of people haven't seen us play all year," Williams said. "We didn't
have that many games on TV. So for them to see us play now and see that we
are a real team. … We're young and we should be around for a couple years."
He's 22 years old, going on 23 next month, and Williams has gone a long way
in this season, in this series, to declare his candidacy for greatness in the
NBA. This is supposed to be San Antonio's championship run and all, but Deron
Williams, he doesn't listen. He keeps coming.
http://tinyurl.com/2wxwp7
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