Meet
A Quick Review of Marvin Williams
Posted by: Chris on July 10th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.I haven’t seen much mention of our new starting 3 in the posts here, so I figured I’d get a discussion rolling. Marvin Williams entered the league in the 2005-2006 season and has spent his entire career with the Hawks. Here are some observations:
BIG. The guy is a large SF, bulky at a full 6′9″ 230-235 lbs.
IMPROVING. Earlier in his career, Williams failed to utilize the natural advantages available to him. He gave marginal defensive effort, and though his shooting talent was always present (well over 80% FT indicates this) he took bad shots and didn’t understand his role in the offense or defense. As he’s matured, clearly he knows his roles on both ends of the court better. His defensive positioning was better last year, and Hawks team defense with him on the floor was much better than previous years. He also placed more of an emphasis on his range shooting, attempting more threes (3.6 per 36 minutes) and making them at a career-high 38.9% clip. He also posted career-best rates in rebounding, steals, turnover avoidance and foul avoidance, even if the limited minutes (~1500 compared to average of 2000+ for the rest of his Hawks tenure) made that improvement harder to see in counting stats. Basically, it’s clear that Williams has a much better understanding of the game now than in previous years, which could lead to another big leap forward as he enters his prime.
UNFOCUSED. Though he’s improved a lot, Williams still takes a number of bad shots from the field, which led to him posting a career-low 43.2 FG % despite having probably his best overall year in this past 2011-2012 campaign. He doesn’t have a favorite spot on the floor and his very good shooting touch is partly negated by an occasionally inconsistent shot motion. Basically, Williams can be a bit awkward at times.
NEW FACE, OLD STORY. Williams is a very talented and skilled player who hasn’t capitalized on his advantages. A similar case on a lower skill level would be CJ Miles. Now it’s time to see if Williams will plateau or wilt entering his prime like Miles seems to have done, or if he’ll continue to expand his game, learn, grow and flourish (like Millsap, for instance).
Replies: 6
Views: 586
6 Responses
In easy words, he needs learn basketball basics, and could be a good fit to make better long plays.
Please dont call CJs name anymore, it sicks near ones.
Thank you for the great post, Chris. Very informative. Great post, Chris. I too am wondering about our newest acquisition. I’m not going to lie, I was not familiar with Marvin Williams until we traded Devin Harris for him. But So far, I like what I’ve seen and heard from him.
David Locke, KOC, Gordon Chieza and others have pointed out that Marvin Williams had a mediocre run in Atlanta through no real fault of his own. Williams was underutilized because Atlanta was already pretty stacked at the 3 and 4 positions, and Williams was dealing with a dissapointed fan base because of where he was chosen in the draft.
I think Williams is going to flourish here. A change of scenerey, new team, new coaching staff, and new fan base will do wonders for him as a player.
But there are 2 main reasons why I think Williams is going to succeed here:
1. We need him. The Jazz have desperately needed a consistent small forward since we lost Matthews. I think he knows this. It does wonders for a player’s confidence when they know they have something important to contribute to the team. In other words, cheesy as it sounds, feeling needed and depended on can bring out the best in a player.
2. He’s got something to prove. He’s got a chip on his shoulder. Similar to some other great Jazz players, a la Paul Millsap, Deron Williams, Wesley Matthews, and HOPEFULLY, Mo Williams.
But the single most important thing to me? I think Williams has a chip on his shoulder, a la Paul Millsap and Deron Williams.
Statistically Marvin Williams is already a huge improvement over CJ Miles and Josh Howard. Howard shot 29% from the field in the playoffs.
Still, it seems like our team is more or less the same as lastr season. We have upgraded our 1 and 3 positions, but haven’t done anything else, other than get rid of Raja Bell.
I was wreally hoping KOC was going to try to trade for another 3 point combo shooter, like Novak, Green, or Morrow. Unfortunately, all three of those players have already been signed. If it’s true that Hayward is going to play at the 2 which is his natural position, he really needs to become a more consistent shooter. Ditto for Burks.
So whats your point Biotch?
^^^This freakin guy…
Anyways, i think marvin just had his best year. It just doesn’t feel like it, because he didn’t play a lot of minutes. but its all about quality not quanity.
No matter what, Marvin is an upgrade no doubt! I feel and what i hope for, with him coming off his best year, the added minutes this year we see a career year for him!
I think the best part about his game, and whats gonna benefit us the most… its the fact he doesn’t create shots for himself but he knows how to score off others! We have our guys that will have the ball in their hands and will create things,i.e. mo, gordon, and AL, so marvin can just slide in the lineup and wreap the benefits of playing off those guys!
Love him. Cant wait to shut down the wings on defense with Hayward and Marvin defending. Good rebounder, I think he will do great in our system. Supposedly he’s a good curl shooter.
Nick, if you’re worried about Hayward’s shooting, remember he did shoot 35/46/83 last year. The FT shooting is a great sign and though 34.6% threes isn’t as good as his 47% in his rookie campaign he’s shown he clearly has the range to hit the shot.
A little more consistency would be nice, but Hayward was already an above average spot-up guy last year. I would not be surprised to see solid improvement this year, something like a 39/48/82 stat line.
If Hayward has improved his man defense and lateral movement he could really be marvelous for us this year, because his help and recovery defense are quite good. On offense, the guy isn’t going to make two or three connected moves on a drive to create a shot, but he has shown that he sometimes has a scary quick first step and he gets up to top speed fast.
Anyway, I wasn’t bullish on Hayward overall for a while, but I think he’s a solid starter and could be more. The main issue I saw in his rookie year and at the start of last season (his endurance) was one we could tell was clearly resolved (as he played effectively throughout games toward the end of the year while playing more minutes than any other JAZZman). So hopefully he’s still putting in the work and rounding out his game.