NBA PM: D-Will Wants to Stay?
Nets guard Deron Williams told the Associated Press that he’s encouraged with the direction of the team and could wind up signing a long-term extension.
"I like this organization a lot," Williams said. "I like the way they’re going. Everyone has made me feel comfortable here. I can definitely see myself staying here. It’s something that will obviously be brought up a lot this summer and a new CBA has to happen before I can even really address it. But once they made the trade for me, they told me that they were going to make me the face of the franchise as they move forward going to Brooklyn."
Williams isn’t allowed to negotiate an extension until the league and union can agree on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, but he’s seen enough in his brief time with the Nets to believe he has a future in Brooklyn.
"The new building is going up and they’re using me to be a big part of it," Williams said. "I like the way things are going.”
Williams has yet to be completely healthy with the Nets. His season ended slightly premature when he had wrist surgery on Monday—a procedure that he wanted to avoid completely.
"I was angry and tried to tell the doctors that I didn’t want to have the surgery," Williams said. "The two doctors had me outvoted, two against one. I couldn’t do anything about it. They told me that there was no reason to postpone it and if I didn’t have it, I would be dealing with the same pain again."
Williams is expected to be completely recovered by next season.
Billups Remembers His 51 Games in Green
Chauncey Billups is new to the whole Knicks-Celtics thing, but not because he’s new to New York.
Billups was drafted third overall by Boston in 1997; and back then, Celtics-Knicks wasn’t considered much of a rivalry.
“It wasn’t at all,” Billups told HOOPSWORLD. “I’m not surprised [it has become a rivalry], but I don’t know much about the rivalry, you know what I’m saying?”
Billups spent 51 games in green and made his first NBA start against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden—a game that perfectly illustrates the state of the Celtics in 1997.
New York held a one-point lead after the first quarter, but outscored Boston 33-17 in the second en route to a 102-70 win. Billups made one of five shots and finished with five points, three assists and seven turnovers for the Celtics—a team headlined by former Kentucky Wildcats Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty, Ron Mercer and coach Rick Pitino.
“It was bleak for awhile,” Billups said. “Even though we had some really good young talent when I got drafted, a young coach, it was a struggle in time for the Celtics—a storied franchise.”
Things got better for Boston, but not until long after Billups was traded to Toronto with Dee Brown, John Thomas and Roy Rogers for Kenny Anderson, Zan Tabak and Popeye Jones.
Of course, 20-20 hindsight tells us that was a dumb move by Pitino, who was a disappointing team president as well as a disappointing coach. Anderson, who had been traded by Portland to Toronto less than a week earlier, never amounted to much in Boston, but Billups eventually became a star after signing with Detroit in the summer of 2002.
Being human, there were times Billups wondered what his career would have been like had he not been dealt as a rookie. Could he have been the next great Celtics point guard in a line that includes Bob Cousy, JoJo White, Nate Archibald and Dennis Johnson?
“Oh I used to think that,” Billups said. “I haven’t any more. The way that the game is now, nobody really stays with their team. Y’all got an exception with Paul [Pierce]. I’m finishing my 14th season. I look at it like, ‘Man, how long would I have been there?’”
Furthermore, his presence—and cap figure—likely would have prevented the acquisitions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. So as bad as the trade may have been for Boston at the time, both Billups (with Detroit in 2004) and Boston (2008) have won titles and now they’ll compete against each other in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
Maybe it was a good trade after all.
Will Carmelo Be Wearing Green?
Tony Allen had one heck of a niche during his six seasons with the Celtics: He made sure the opposition’s best scorer was covered in green.
But Allen signed in Memphis over the offseason and Boston struggled to replace his defensive tenacity off the bench. Von Wafer isn’t a great defender, Marquis Daniels got traded, Avery Bradley is undersized and inexperienced while Delonte West is still dealing with the lingering effects of a broken wrist.
Enter Jeff Green, who, like Chauncey Billups, was traded by Boston as a rookie. The Celtics drafted him with the fifth overall pick in 2007, but sent him to Seattle for Ray Allen. Now that he’s returned to the Celtics in the Kendrick Perkins trade, Green may have picked up Tony Allen’s gig.
Green selflessly watched his scoring fall from 15.2 PPG in Oklahoma City to 9.8 PPG in Boston, but he still has a chance to be a star on the defensive side. At 6-9, 235 pounds he’s the perfect build to guard Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony—someone he saw in the Western Conference for three and a half seasons.
“When he was with Denver I was mostly matched up with Kenyon [Martin],” Green told HOOPSWORLD of Anthony. “But I guarded him my fair share.
“He’s an all-around good player,” Green continued. “He can do anything on the floor. And he knows he’s pretty strong and can get to the hole pretty easily. It’s not just one thing that sets him apart.”
Of course, Green will see more than just Anthony on the defensive side. He has experience defending power forwards and even 6-7 Landry Fields could be targeted.
“I think all of them,” Green said. “Doc [Rivers] has been putting me in a position where I can showcase what I can do with my versatility. That’s almost every position.”
Green isn’t at Tony Allen’s level defensively. He isn’t fast enough to defend point guards and he doesn’t have the years of experience in the system that Allen does. But Green is taller, possibly stronger and just as eager to learn.
“They’re different defensively from what I came from in Oklahoma,” Green said. “The strategies are different. So I’m just trying to get used to it.”
{AUTHOR_BOX}Lakers Are Doing Fine(s)
Kobe Bryant got slapped with a $100,000 fine earlier in the week, so now it was coach Phil Jackson’s turn to donate a chunk of dough to the NBA.
ESPN’s Marc Stein has been told that both Jackson and Lakers have each been fined $75,000 for the coaching legend’s lockout-related comments.
What exactly did Jackson say about the lockout that would cause the league to demand a total of $125,000?
Apparently, Jackson told Lakers beat writers that the lockout is a major reason he will retire after the season.
"It was really about the fact that there’s going to be a lockout," Jackson told reporters. "It’s the perfect time to help the organization cover a gap if there’s a lockout. My staff, all those guys who work with me. All those things played into it. I felt like an obligation.
"Who knows what the NBA is going to look like next year?" he continued. “It’s going to take on a whole different proportion. How long is it going to last? I think there are some people who are pretty convinced there’s not going to be a year next year."
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