Brooklyn Nets: Could Brooklyn Survive a Deron Williams Injury?
By Phil Watson
Photo Credit: Erik Cleves Kristensen (Flickr.com)
Conventional wisdom dictates that when an NBA team loses its franchise point guard for an extended period of time, nothing good usually comes of it.
Case in point: The recent slide by the Los Angeles Clippers while All-Star point guard Chris Paul was out with a bruised right kneecap.
However, the counterpoint to that argument is presented by the Boston Celtics, who have won seven games in a row since losing their All-Star man at the point, Rajon Rondo, to a season-ending knee injury two weeks ago.
So for teams that happen to have one of those rare franchise point-guard types, a natural question becomes, “Can Team X survive without (insert point guard’s name here)?”
Or more specifically in this case, could the Brooklyn Nets survive if Deron Williams were forced to sit out a bunch of games?
There are three directions in which to look for an answer—what happened with the Clippers without Paul recently, what’s happening with the Celtics without Rondo and what has happened to the Nets without Williams.
Chris Paul Sorely Missed In Lob City
Paul returned to the Clippers’ lineup on Friday in a loss to the Miami Heat on South Beach and was rusty. He managed just three points and two assists in 19 minutes against the Heat. But Paul bounced back well on Sunday at Madison Square Garden, lighting up the New York Knicks for 25 points and seven assists in a Clipper victory.
Paul missed nine games because of the bruised kneecap, a stretch during which the Clippers were just 3-6. Their offensive production suffered without Paul, as Los Angeles scored more than 100 points just twice in those nine games—both losses.
For the season, the Clippers are averaging 99.8 points a game. But while Paul was out, Lob City was more like a brickyard. Los Angeles mustered just 92.2 points a game without Paul, a drop of more than seven points a night from their seasonal average.
Paul has missed 12 games altogether this season and the Clippers are 6-6—they did win three in a row without him from Jan. 14-17 against the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves, all on the road.
Paul came back to quarterback a Jan. 17 win over the Washington Wizards but then re-aggravated the kneecap in a loss at Golden State on Jan. 21. That led to his nine-game absence.
In Boston, is the Question ‘Rajon Who?’
Compare what the Clippers endured without Chris Paul with how the Celtics have rallied without Rondo.
Boston averages 96.4 points per game this season and shoots 46 percent from the floor. But in the seven games since Rondo’s injury, the Celtics are scoring 105 points per game and shooting 47.4 percent.
The shooting figure is made slightly more impressive by the fact Boston was just 43-for-108 (39.8) in Sunday’s triple-overtime victory over the Denver Nuggets at TD Garden.
So is part of the Celtics’ success without Rondo a product of a soft schedule? Sure, there have been victories at home over the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic and a road win over the Toronto Raptors.
But the seven-game streak has also included wins over contenders such as the Miami Heat, Clippers and Nuggets, as well as a victory over those should-be contenders, the Los Angeles Lakers.
The important thing to remember with Boston’s hot streak is to not get too carried away with the meaning that can be culled from a small sample size. The Celtics appear to be thriving without Rondo, but that is a situation that could very much be described as “for now.”
Would Brooklyn Be the Same Without Deron Williams?
The Nets have played just once without Williams this season, a Dec. 26 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks that he missed because of a wrist injury.
That game, coincidentally or not, was Avery Johnson’s last stand as coach of the Nets and Williams returned to the lineup for the team’s next game, under interim coach P.J. Carlesimo.
Williams is an enormous component of the Brooklyn offense, to be sure. Between his assist percentage of 36.8 and a usage rate of 23.3, it can’t be understated how much Williams contributes. His 5.2 win shares lead the Nets and, for all the talk of his shooting woes this season, Williams has a total shooting percentage of 54.2—less than his career mark of 55.4 percent, but better than last season’s 52.7.
While the Nets were still in New Jersey, Williams missed 11 games in 2011-12. The Nets were 1-10 in those games; in fairness, however, New Jersey was just 22-44 on the year.
The Nets’ backup point guard options without Williams would be veteran C.J. Watson and rookie Tyshawn Taylor.
Watson, in his fifth year out of Tennessee, is logging 17.6 minutes a game, with per 36 minute averages of 12.1 points, 3.3 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.5 steals. However, he’s also shooting a putrid 38.3 percent, including just 34.3 percent from 3-point range. Watson has 1.6 win shares and a .091 win shares per 48 minutes (WS/48) rate. By contrast, Williams’ WS/48 is .138.
Taylor, meanwhile, has played in fewer than half of Brooklyn’s games (25 of 51 to date) and is getting just 4.1 minutes a game when he does make that ever-so-rare walk from the end of Carlesimo’s bench. The results (remember the earlier warning about small sample sizes) have not been exactly stellar.
Taylor is averaging 12.9 points and 2.1 assists per 36 minutes … but that goes with a ghastly 4.2 turnovers in that same prorated playing time. His win share numbers make Watson look like the second coming of John Stockton—a minus-0.3 win share figure with a WS/48 of minus-0.155.
Ouch.
So it’s fair to say that the Brooklyn Nets without Deron Williams would much more closely resemble the struggles experienced by the Los Angeles Clippers without Chris Paul than they would the Boston Celtics’ exploits since losing Rajon Rondo.
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