SJMN (Kawakami blog): Warriors get Marcus Williams, mostly..

Warriors get Marcus Williams, mostly as a shot in the dark

Posted by Tim Kawakami on July 22nd, 2008 at 12:49 pm

Sorry, been in and out today and will be out for a long time very soon (darn
my real job!), so this is going up late and short:

* NY Post reported hours ago that the Warriors acquired Nets point guard
Marcus Williams-a 2006 1st-round pick-for a protected 1st-round pick either
next year (protected through the lottery), next year (protected from
1-to-11) or two 2nd-rounders if the protected clauses are invoked both
times.

Assuming the report is accurate, and Fred Kerber is very good so I very much
assume veracity, Williams will slide into a role as a back-up to Monta Ellis
possibly with a shot to see time alongside Ellis for short stretches.

This is not good news for the C.J. Watson Nation, but oh well.

I have several fast reactions:

-I considered Williams an interesting prospect out of UConn in 2006 and was
as baffled as anybody at his freefall to the No. 22 slot that draft (one
behind Rondo, three behind Quincy Douby, 13 behind Patrick O'Bryant).

So the Warriors getting Williams for a future non-lottery pick is pretty
good-not much of a risk, could turn out to be something for not much. It's
sort of like the Warriors traded POB for Williams-double draft busts-at
about half the salary.

-Even two years ago it was clear that Williams was not a perfect NBA point
guard candidate: Erratic with the ball, a little chubby, horrendous
defensively, thinks a bit too much of himself as an offensive force and not
enough about getting the ball to others. (That's sort of the entire
amazingly talented but sloppy UConn program, right there in a nutshell.
Other than Okafor and maybe Ray Allen.)

Williams has followed through on the sloppiness, and not the expectations,
in two erratic NBA seasons. Below 40% shooting both seasons, never won
serious playing time consideration from Coach Lawrence Frank (whom I
respect), never seemed too into becoming an all-around player. (Again:
Typical UConn.)

His assist-to-turnover ratio is awful: 2.6/1.4 last year in short minutes
and when you go into his secondary stats. whoa. If he had played regularly,
he might've made my all No-Defense team and overall he was a -181 in the
plus/minus in very limited minutes. That's awful.

There's a reason the Nets, who aren't stupid, had a choice between signing
Keyon Dooling for two years at more than $6M to back up Devin Harris (who is
due for a new contract next summer) or keeping Williams at $1.26M and a team
option. and they signed Dooling.

If they thought Williams was any kind of option behind Harris and possibly
in place of Harris, Rod Thorn and Kiki Vandeweghe would've kept Williams. It
would've been silly not to.

Yet they gave him away. Williams has talent and can make plays, but the
not-dumb Nets gave him away. Now it's up to Mullin and Don Nelson to figure
out how to use him without highlighting his obvious negatives.

Playing Williams and Ellis together, on the face of it, is a defensive
nightmare.

Playing Williams for 8 to 12 minutes a game behind Ellis. that could
possibly work, though Williams had better realize that he's not supposed to
shoot much and that he has to lose some weight.

Presuming that Williams is going to work his way into becoming the team's
point guard of the future. no. Not unless everything he has done in the NBA
so far is meaningless. And that almost never is true.

The Warriors basically bought themselves a free year to look at Williams
before having to decide about his future. He's a Big East guy, and Mullin
likes those guys, especially if Al Bianchi and Louie C add their
recommendations. Williams is a lefty, and we know about Mullin's fondness
for that.

The rest is up to Williams.