By Kurt Kragthorpe
Tribune Columnist
First published Feb 25 2011 10:38PM
Updated Feb 26, 2011 12:37AM
San Antonio
The player involved in the worst trade in Jazz history took the floor Friday night as a starter for the New Jersey Nets.
Soon afterward, Deron Williams also was introduced.
Apparently, it was not weird enough just to have Williams go from representing the Jazz in the NBA All-Star Game last weekend to declaring himself “excited about being a Net” before he would dress for his next basketball game.
In a crazy convergence, the Jazz’s first two lottery picks were reconnected when the Jazz traded Williams to New Jersey for two players and two draft choices. So it was that while his old team was earning its first win without him Friday, Williams and forward Kris Humphries played together again in the Nets’ 106-96 loss to San Antonio at the AT&T Center.
For Williams, this was no phase-in process. Even while aggravating the wrist injury that has bothered him since a game against the Spurs in Salt Lake City last month, he played 41 minutes.
Williams posted 14 points (5-of-13 shooting) and 12 assists.
“It could have easily been a 20-assist night, with the shots that we missed — wide, wide open,” said coach Avery Johnson.
Humphries seemed to benefit from one season’s experience (2005-06) with Williams in Utah, working well with him on the pick-and-roll. “He definitely gave me a lot of good looks,” said Humphries, who scored 12 points.
Williams described his first of 440 NBA games with a team other than the Jazz as “different at first,” but he enjoyed it. Just to kid his new teammates, he once broke a huddle with “Go Jazz!”
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov made a special trip to San Antonio to meet his new acquisition, which “meant a lot” to Williams.
After the morning shootaround, Johnson cited “absolutely, a different air” with a two-time All-Star joining his team.
There he was in red, wearing his usual No. 8 and playing point guard for the NBA’s next-to-worst offensive team. The Nets (17-41) are bad enough that Humphries has developed into a serviceable player for them, nearly five years after the Jazz traded him (to Toronto) for former BYU center Rafael Araujo, who lasted only one more year in the NBA.
Williams and the Nets will play tonight in Houston, completing a wild week for him. Somewhere between Texas and Utah and New Jersey and back to Texas, during those 36 or so hours when he was flying around and trying to process what just happened, Williams arrived at an understanding about why the Jazz traded him.
Having watched former teammates Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver and Wesley Matthews leave as free agents last summer, Williams recognizes why Jazz CEO Greg Miller would justify the trade by citing a “gut sense” that Williams would explore free agency himself, as early as 2012.
“He was in a tough situation, because I never gave a certainty I was going to stay — because I didn’t know. I still can’t say,” Williams said.
Miller “had that backfire a couple times now,” Williams said. “I don’t think they could really afford to let me test my options.”
After being informed of the trade Wednesday morning, while the Jazz were preparing to play in Dallas, Williams came home to Salt Lake City to gather clothing and say goodbye to his wife, Amy, and their two daughters. He then flew to Newark, N.J., arriving at about 4 a.m. After a physical exam and a news conference, he joined the Nets for their Thursday evening flight to San Antonio.
The Nets will play two games against Toronto in London, March 4 and 5. Amy Williams is due to deliver a child March 15, but hopes to move up the date for her husband’s break following the London trip.
While the Williamses await their new arrival, Prokhorov and the Nets have taken over the D-Will Watch. The issue of whether he will sign a contract extension is somebody else’s baby now.
