Upper Bowl Jazz Fan

Deron Williams: a 2010 All Star? What’s happened in previous years?

// January 10th, 2010 // All Star Game

First and foremost, I am the biggest Deron Williams fan around.  I’m glad the Jazz picked him in ’05.  I’m pleased when Williams wins the matchup between him and Chris Paul.  I’ll also be the first one to say that this year, especially, Williams deserves to be an All Star.  Check out these stats: just under 50% from the field, 39% 3 point % (could be better, but is still solid), 4RPG, 1ST, 9.7AST.  Those are All Star numbers for sure.  (continued…)

Before this year, the All Star game represented who was contributing at a high level to his team’s success up to this point this year. What should not be taken into effect is how any particular player performed in seasons past.  Granted, this year has taken a completely different form but we’ll save that for another day.

People are calling it an outrage that he hasn’t been selected to the All Star Game yet and it some ways it is an outrage.  He’s undeniably one of the top 3 point guards in the league and if he had been in the Eastern Conference he likely would have made the ASG every year starting in 2007.  The West is stacked with almost superhuman guards, Kobe Bryant, Brandon Roy, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Chauncey Billups, the list goes on.  This makes entry into the ASG difficult as a guard.

Looking at Deron Williams year by year especially within any particular year there is an interesting trend.  He has started out almost every single year on the slower side and then picked things up significantly around the All Star Break.  (continued…)

The most obvious case of that was during the ’08-09 season when Williams suffered a severe high ankle sprain that caused him to miss 15 games or so.  Even after he returned you could tell that he still wasn’t completely healed.  But the Jazz had also sustained injuries to Carlos Boozer, Matt Harpring, and a few other players and DWill decided that for better or worse, he needed to get back into the game.  It’s interesting to note how a point guard’s game changes when he isn’t confident about his wheels.  Williams turnover rate went up and his FG% went down.  He simply wasn’t confident about things that were second nature to him (running, jumping, and passing) because his ankle wasn’t 100%.  Last year, he clearly didn’t deserve to go to the All Star Game since the first part of the season was noticeably shaky.  Interestingly, right around the All Star Break DWill began to turn it on and played incredible basketball for the rest of the year.

Every other year is the same story though: a good-not-great start to the season and then continually better play after Christmas time.  During the ’07-08 year was the closest Williams came to being an All-Star.  This ideology is all based on my previous statement that All Stars are named by how they perform in the first half of a given year and how their team has been playing.  DWill was putting up solid numbers in the beginning of the season.  The Jazz were playing decently until December when they lost a significant number of games and were hovering just better than .500.  When you throw in a number of other extenuating circumstances it’s easier to see why Williams didn’t get his All Star bid: Allen Iverson was in the beginning of his first full year as  Denver Nugget and people were gushing about how AI was the missing piece Denver needed.  Tracy McGrady was still playing solidly for the Rockets and was a virtual lock.  Steve Nash was coming off a season in which he was named MVP.  (Can you think of a time when an MVP is NOT named to the ASG the following season if they weren’t injured?  I can’t either.)  Kobe Bryant was an automatic shoo-in which is what happens when you play for the Lakers and your name is Kobe Bryant.  Chris Paul was having a breakout season single-handedly carrying the Hornets on his back.  Brandon Roy was emerging as a superstar and led his team to 13 wins in a row in December which put the Trailblazers on the map.

You can see now how it was difficult to select All Stars that year (’08) from a conference stacked with guards.  Williams didn’t get the nod and that brings us up to now.  Deron Williams is having a great season and is playing as well as other guards from the West.  However, his standings in the All Star Voting don’t look promising.  Tracy McGrady, despite only playing about 40 minutes this season, has a good chance at starting in the ASG.  However, if Steve Nash (who’s next in votes) can surpass Tmac in votes then McGrady will not go and Deron Williams will most likely be chosen by the coaches as one of the reserves.  It’s sad that this will be the only way to get DWill to go but it needs to happen.  You can vote for Williams/Nash here.  Do so often!

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