The Arguments for Deron Williams

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Published: October 8, 2010

Utah Jazz fans, and really just D-Willers in general, have recently decided to bring back the old debate about who is the best point guard in the NBA. Most of the arguments are the same, but with Paul’s recent injury a few of them seem stronger. Let’s look at the more common reasons why they think Deron Williams is better than Chris Paul.

The argument of health- This is quite popular nowadays, but it’s really not based on anything more than a fluke injury. As for that fluke injury potentially lingering, nobody cares about your pretend medical opinion. The fact is, this argument wouldn’t exist if not for a wayward pass by David West. Through both players’ first four season in the league, Deron had missed 18 games, and Paul 28. That comes out to 10 games over the course of four seasons, or 2.5 per year. Since they were drafted, Paul has played 12,881 minutes, while Williams has logged 13,623. That 5% difference hardly make a concrete case that one gets hurt more than the other, or is “injury prone”.

Turtle Power!

The argument of loyalty- This one has been popping up a bit, and for good reason. Paul wanted out of New Orleans and supposedly sent Beebop and Rocksteady behind the scenes to make it happen. Or something like that. Anyway, there is a case to be made that right now that D-Will is a more valuable asset, or more desirable, or whatever, because of his supposed loyalty. That’s fine and acceptable. The problem is that this argument has nothing to do with playing basketball, and everything to do with off the court issues. It has no business being used in a debate about who is the best point guard on the court.

The head to head argument- This  has been around a while, and still isn’t fooling anyone except the D-Willers. Essentially they like to just throw 24/25ths of all games entirely out the window, and instead focus on the remaining 1/25th. Sure, those games prove that Deron Williams’ team has thus far kicked Chris Paul’s team all over the court, and that Deron has so far outplayed Paul when they have been matched up, but that’s all that it means. Take the Nadal-Federer rivalry in tennis for instance. Nadal tends to beat Federer when they play heads up, but Federer is still considered the all time best, while Nadal isn’t even within shouting distance of the conversation. You might say that Nadal is better than Federer heads up, but to argue that he’s a better player overall would be foolish.

The argument for defense- Although it’s hard to evaluate defense using statistical measures, Paul and Deron are both undeniably good defenders. Paul has been voted onto the All-Defensive first team and second team, while Deron hasn’t been mentioned. So as of now there hasn’t been any good argument that he’s better defensively than Paul. Have one? Leave a link.

The argument for Chris Paul being better is fairly simple, so there’s no need to waste time detailing it. Look at any statistical measure (PER, adjusted +/-, efficiency ratings, APER, win score, clutch stats, whatever) and it’s clear who fares better. There are no advanced statistical measures of overall performance that favor Deron.

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