Marcus Williams Fans Rejoice!

[clrumph]

Looks like Marcus showed out in his summer league debut:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?i...ht&lid=tab2pos1

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The former UConn star made 9-of-15 shots and 4-of-5 3-pointers for a game-high 24 points. He also had 12 assists, many of them drop-off passes to Eric Williams (12 points) and Jamar Smith (11 points) for easy dunks. It looks like the Nets might have finally found the backup to Jason Kidd they've been searching for.

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If Marcus continues to play this well then BK haters will despise him for passing up on Chris Paul and Marcus Williams in back to back drafts! Maybe we should just enshrine Paul and Williams into the Hall of Fame now and force BK to give their introductions.

[mrhonline]

MWill is going to get minutes in NJ and will play on a good team, so expect him to perform well.

I'm not convinced, however, that he will be a better player than Speedy Claxton over the next four years.

[EddieK]

That's a nice showing for him, although it's in a Summer League game. I would have tried to make a push for him since he dropped so far into the 1st round. Who knows, if we tried to package our 2nd and one of our other players to move up.

[BornandDieHawks]

This year was different from last. BK took the BPA last year because he was assembling talent for the team. Now we all know where our most need and that was defending the basket. If Williams have a good year then I know BK will get some heat from writers, but I think he did the right thing for what our team needed.

[KB21]

Considering the fact that Marcus Williams fell to the 22nd pick, criticizing Billy for not taking him would be foolish.

People are going to criticize Billy Knight regardless. Shelden Williams could average 17 points and 12 rebounds a game, and people will still criticize Billy for taking him.

[KB21]

Billy said on the radio after the draft that the Hawks talked to every team from the Chicago Bulls at 16 on down through the draft in an attempt to move back into the first round. He said that they had conversations with Phoenix and was offering a similar deal to what Boston offered, but he said that Phoenix probably didn't take their deal because they didn't want to give our pick back to us after losing Joe Johnson. So, Billy did try. Who knows if his target was Marcus Williams. After listening to Michael Gearon Jr. on the radio the other day, I have a feeling that Marcus Williams was the target.

[mrhonline]

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Considering the fact that Marcus Williams fell to the 22nd pick, criticizing Billy for not taking him would be foolish.

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I was just going to post that...

[vdunkndunk]

Maybe if Marcus Williams had looked like this BEFORE the draft he wouldn't have fallen out of the lottery:

He looks like he's dropped some weight and gotten in shape.

[EddieK]

I agree that we had some interest in him. We didn't have him in for a workout for nothing. And he impressed in the workout for us also.

[DJlaysitup]

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Billy said on the radio after the draft that the Hawks talked to every team from the Chicago Bulls at 16 on down through the draft in an attempt to move back into the first round. He said that they had conversations with Phoenix and was offering a similar deal to what Boston offered, but he said that Phoenix probably didn't take their deal because they didn't want to give our pick back to us after losing Joe Johnson. So, Billy did try...

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Yeah KB, that's the thing - there is no rerun of what actually happened in the war room for us ameteur analysts to rely on. Surely there were efforts made just like there were apparently efforts made last year that didn't pan out...at least they were trying and when it's all said and done we can't (for example) compare Solomon Jones to a guy like Marcus Williams - one that we simply couldn't get.

[Packfill]

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Considering the fact that Marcus Williams fell to the 22nd pick, criticizing Billy for not taking him would be foolish.

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At the end of the day, it matters not where these guys were picked but how well they perform.

Marcus is one of the types of player that tends to fall in the draft - i.e., because of some athletic or size limitation (although there is another type that tends to fall as well - that being the athlete with limited skills ala Josh Smith).

Still way to early to tell how Marcus will perform long term.

[OGRat]

I think he fell because of the character issues more than anything else.

[Lascar78]

I think it was threefold between character issues, playing little to no D, and being relatively unathletic and showing up to workouts in even worse shape than during the season.

[clrumph]

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I think it was threefold between character issues, playing little to no D, and being relatively unathletic and showing up to workouts in even worse shape than during the season.

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He's probably not a workout warrior like Rondo but I believe he'll have a much better career because he's a complete PG.

[Lascar78]

on offense

[twentythree]

There are only two things that I didn't like in this draft. First, BK didn't get any of Suns' point guards. Sergio Rodriguez was sold for 3 million dollars; Rondo (Plus Brian Grant as a bonus) was sold for Jiri Welsch. Which was traded for Cavs future first rounder before.

Second was again BK not picking Alexander Johnson instead of Solomon Jones. By the way, I didn't even know Jones before the draft, so I have to trust Billy.

Anyway, I love Marcus Williams but I'm happy with our new undersized post monster. I'm sure we won't regret.

[Lascar78]

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There are only two things that I didn't like in this draft. First, BK didn't get any of Suns' point guards. Sergio Rodriguez was sold for 3 million dollars; Rondo (Plus Brian Grant as a bonus) was sold for Jiri Welsch. Which was traded for Cavs future first rounder before.

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They weren't going to give us one of our picks back, plus it is in their interest for us to be bad so that their 2007 pick is better. They're not going to screw themselves. We had no shot at the suns pick.