At the beginning of this year, and throughout this young season, NBA analysts everywhere have been speculating about teaming up Deron Williams and Dwight Howard, either through a trade that gets Dwight to NJN or through some salary cap manipulation that lands them both on the same team as free agents (e.g. Dallas).
But why hasn't anyone mentioned that so far this year, Deron is having a down year?
So far this year, Williams hasn't been very efficient.
| Per-48 Stats | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEA | Min | WP48 | Wins | PTS | DRB | ORB | REB | AST | TO | BLK | STL | PF |
| 10-11 UTH | 2005 | .177 | 7.4 | 27.0 | 4.1 | 0.8 | 4.9 | 12.3 | 4.5 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 3.6 |
| 10-11 NJN | 455 | .083 | 0.8 | 19.0 | 5.0 | 0.8 | 5.8 | 16.1 | 4.5 | 0.3 | 1.6 | 4.0 |
| 11-12 NJN | 770 | .038 | 0.6 | 26.6 | 3.9 | 0.7 | 4.7 | 11.0 | 5.8 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 2.7 |
| Career Avg | 2407 | .149 | 7.5 | 23.3 | 3.7 | 0.7 | 4.4 | 12.3 | 4.2 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 3.6 |
| Average PG | 1613 | .099 | 3.3 | 19.4 | 3.9 | 0.9 | 4.8 | 8.3 | 3.3 | 0.3 | 1.8 | 3.5 |
| Shooting Efficiency | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FG% | 2FG% | 3FG% | FT% | eFG% | TS% | FGA | 3FGA | PPS | FTA | |
| Williams 10-11 | 43.9% | 49.1% | 33.2% | 84.5% | 49.3% | 56.7% | 19.0 | 6.2 | 1.34 | 8.0 |
| Williams 11-12 | 40.2% | 43.1% | 35.2% | 83.6% | 46.6% | 52.7% | 22.0 | 8.0 | 1.21 | 7.2 |
| Williams (career) | 45.9% | 49.5% | 35.5% | 80.9% | 50.4% | 55.9% | 18.1 | 4.6 | 1.28 | 6.2 |
| Average PG | 43.7% | 46.6% | 36.1% | 80.9% | 48.6% | 53.5% | 16.1 | 4.4 | 1.20 | 4.6 |
Deron is basically having a bad shooting stretch, and turning the ball over at an alarming rate so far in 2012. His assists are down a bit, which is likely the result of the fact that he's shooting more than he used to. Which in turn is why his point totals have increased a bit. I don't know if those numbers are going to be long-term trends, but it is rather amazing to note that no one seems to be talking about it. My theory is that if points per game remain constant (or go up) than people don't seem to notice these things, even though it should be obvious that if points per game stay the same and field goal attempts go up, this isn't a good thing. It's like measuring a baseball player by the absolute number of hits and walks he gets per game rather than as a percentage of his at-bats.
I don't have an explanation, by the way, although it's tempting to say that playing in Turkey may have worn him out a bit. I just think it's interesting that Williams is in the news so often (mostly based on speculation he'll play with Dwight), yet no one seems to be talking about his play.