Ensuring the annual selection of Deron Williams to the NBA All-star game.
Archive for November, 2009
Maybe VoteDeron.com was a bad idea?
Nov 25th
Explanation?
10 & 9 & 7 & 7.
Seems like a decent line until you realize that one of those 7s is for the number of turnovers Deron had last night against the Thunder.
His ten points also came on just 5/14 shooting.
Worst of all was that the Jazz were beat down at the ESA, somewhere that is suppose to be an almost automatic win for the Jazz.
I have to agree with what a lot of people are thinking and saying – It sure seems like Deron is trying too hard and forcing a lot of things.
Most noticeable is his 3.8 turnovers per game which would be a career-high. He has 46 on the year and if he hadn’t missed a couple of games, he would almost be the league leader. There are plenty of other great players that are high on the list like LeBron, KOobe, Nash, Wade, and Carmelo. You’re bound to get a high number of TOs when you have the ball a lot.
But Deron’s turnovers seem to come when he’s trying to do too much and force things that aren’t there.
His FG% is also lower than it has been the past couple of seasons. Some of the shots he is taking are outside of the offense. It just looks like he’s doing too much and it’s hurting the team at times.
I don’t know if this has anything to do with trying to make the All-star team this year or not, I think it has to be in part though. I know it will mean a lot to him to finally be an AS and to get to do it in Dallas. He of course has had the recent medical issues with his daughter and there’s no telling what impact that has on his game.
But Deron, if you’re reading this, and hopefully not because I hope you’re not looking to a little fan blog influence you, just relax and let things come to you. You’re going to make the All-star team. Whether it be by the fans (hopefully) or the coaches, you’ll get in.
You’ve had the numbers in previous seasons to get there and you’ll have them again this year. You’ve just needed some exposure (which is crazy that you haven’t had yet).
So have fun. We haven’t seen you smile in a while.
The rest of you, get voting.
Popularity: 18%
Deron Williams and the Jazz take down the Spurs in San Antonio.
Nov 20th
First off, great night for the Jazz as they ended their 10-year drought in San Antonio with a 90-83 win over the Spurs. It doesn’t matter who was out, the Jazz got another win on the road and got back to .500 for the season.
Deron led all scorers with 21 points on 8-15 shooting. He was on fire from behind the arc as well nailing 4-5.
At one point last night, Carlos Boozer and Tim Duncan had more assists than Deron. That changed in the fourth though as D-Will handed out 6 dimes to finish with 10 on the night.
Deron’s now right at 20 & 1o for the season along with 5 boards a night.
Now you need to do your part and go vote. Use the form at the left, text “Deron Williams” to 69622 right now. With Steve Nash having a huge year and Chris Paul getting votes, we’re going to need a big push.
Popularity: 12%
Refocus – @chrisbosh
Nov 17th
Deron has been out tending to his ill daughter and I’ve been slacking on the VoteDeron updates. We’re back at it though and we’re going to keep hitting @chrisbosh until he re-weets to vote for Deron.
So keep re-tweeting until he responds. We need everyone to RT as much as possible to grab his attention.
So be watching for the tweet from @votederon coming and RT!
Popularity: 14%
No luck for Deron Williams and the Jazz
Nov 12th
He wasn’t suppose to play last night because of some back and calf pain. Maybe now he’s wishing he hadn’t and had rested up a bit.
On the other hand, if he hadn’t played, it could have been a lot worse than the 105-86 beating the Jazz took against the Celtics.
His pain could have been a factor last night as he had a subpar game with just 13 points and 4 assists. He did pull down 7 boards though, second to only Millsap’s 13. I love the extra rebounds for his numbers, but that usually means that nobody else is grabbing boards. It’s not usually what the PG should be doing.
The Celtics were just too good last night and the Jazz have some issues to resolve before they’re going to be competing with the likes of Boston, let alone Boston on the road.
The thing that hurts in regards to Deron’s chances at getting voted into the All-star games are losses like this. He’ll be right around 20 & 10 when the break comes up, but unless the Jazz are having a phenomenal season, he’s not going to be getting much attention nationally such as ESPN and the like. That really hurts his chances.
A couple of tough games coming up. The Jazz will be in Philly tomorrow night and then Cleveland on Saturday. Let’s hope they can pick up a win against the 76ers as playing @ Cleveland on the back end of a back-to-back doesn’t look good.
Popularity: 14%
The VoteDeron twitter campaign.
Nov 10th
With All-star voting starting today (stop reading for a second, and go vote, I’ll wait), it’s time to start up the campaign efforts. My first plan is to appeal to the big NBA twitter users, starting with @the_real_shaq. Start big, right?
So what I need you to do is to re-tweet the tweets that are directed @the_real_shaq in hopes of gaining his attention. With the replies he gets a day, we need a few hundred directed at him to even scratch the surface. So when you see tweets going to NBA players, make sure to re-tweet so that we can get some support.
I would love to see Shaq RT to his millions of followers and get some votes for Deron.
I need everyone to do this for it to work.
Email me with questions, basketballjohn@gmail.com or votederon@gmail.com
Popularity: 14%
Nov 10th
The good (the win and assists), the bad (the 7 turnovers), and the ugly (the shooting)
I’m sure Deron would tell you that he would rather perform poorly and the Jazz win then to have a good game stats wise and lose.
That’s what I said after Deron had a spectacular night against the Kings. Despite that though, the Jazz lost. That seemed to be a prophetic statement given the outcome of the Jazz/Knicks game last night. Here’s Deron’s line,
2/10 FG, 0/5 3PA, 7 TO, and 2 steals. Yikes! He did have a new season-high in assists with 16 which helped balance out his otherwise dreadful offensive night. That was one more than the 15 he had against the Kings.
Most importantly though of course was that the Jazz won, 95-93. It had been 5 years since the Jazz won in MSG. AK was the leader of the team at that point and had a huge game to get that win. He had another good game last night going for 23 & 6 & 6.
It was a terrible win, if there is such a thing. The Jazz barely held on after having a 21-point lead at one point. They’ll head to Boston to take on the C’s tomorrow night.
Popularity: 14%
A Wasted Performance
Nov 7th
When you get a line from Deron like 29 & 15, 2 steals, and 3 rebounds, you would expect the Jazz would win most of those. When he has a line like that against the the Kings, a team the Jazz should beat, you would think it was almost a guaranteed win.
Not the case tonight as the Jazz fell apart in the second and third quarters and let the Kings overcome an 11-point first-quarter deficit.
There was a bit of a rally in the fourth but the Jazz couldn’t stop the Kings down the stretch and Sacramento won 104-99.
I’m sure Deron would tell you that he would rather perform poorly and the Jazz win then to have a good game stats wise and lose.
The bad part about all of this is that the voters, both fans and coaches, tend to look at the team’s record when voting. If the Jazz are still floundering when voting gets underway this week, it could hurt Deron’s chances at getting in via the fans vote.
If you follow Deron and the Jazz, you’ll know that they haven’t exactly done well on the road the past forever. A 2-2 split would make most Jazz fans ecstatic. But after tonight’s performance, the Jazz could easily come back 0-4.
I’m sure the All-star game wouldn’t have quite the same feel to it if the Jazz aren’t doing well. Let’s hope that something changes sooner rather than later.
Popularity: 16%
Recap from Jazz/Spurs – Back on Track?
Nov 6th
Back on Track
A lot more fun when we win! All it took was 48 min! Now I can stop being a craby patty as my daughters would say….. Now make it 2 in a row
That was Deron’s tweet last night after the Jazz took down the Spurs by a large margin, 113-99. The win was an all around good effort from everyone on the team. Boozer was back for at least a game with 27 & 14. Whether you want him traded or whether you want him with the Jazz, he has to play like he did last night.
Deron had 27 & 9 & 7 last night, a great rebound from the Dallas game a couple nights ago. Rebounds has always been an area on the stat sheet that’s been a little low when compared to some other MVP-type guards. But if you know the Jazz system, rebounding for the guards isn’t as big of a priority. And when you have Boozer, Millsap, Okur, etc, you’re not bound to have many opportunities anyway.
But he seems to have made a bit of an effort to bump that up. He’s averaging 5 a game early in the season when 3.3 has been his previous high. So we’ll see if that keeps up.
Here are his current stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com,
| FG% | 3P% | FT% | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | PF | PTS |
| 0.467 | 0.316 | 0.857 | 5 | 8.8 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 3 | 4.2 | 23.2 |
- Pts 23.2
- Reb 5.0
- Ast 8.8
The Jazz will welcome the Kings into town tomorrow night before they head out on a east-coast roadie.
Deron makes two of the top 5 from last night,
Popularity: 16%
Deron’s stats against the Rockets
Nov 3rd
Where's T-Mac to jack up an inefficient 30 shots a game when you need him?
18 & 8. I should just leave it at that and then you could go to sleep with visions of Deron dunking on people’s heads.
Unfortunately, those 18 points came on 20 shots and the Jazz went down hard to the Rockets, 113-96.
A call that went against Deron early in the fourth seemed to rattle him and the team a bit and it was all downhill from there. He drove and appeared to get fouled by Battier on the way up. Deron came down on another Rocket that may or may not have been called correctly as a charge. That was one of a few calls where Deron didn’t get the whistle he wanted.
It sure seems like the Jazz are going to go as Deron goes. He never got in a rhythm and neither did the rest of the team.
The Jazz and Deron will turn right around and play in Dallas tomorrow night. I’m just hoping the Jazz can keep it competitive.
Popularity: 15%
Guess Deron’s Stats Contest
Nov 2nd
While we’re waiting for Deron and the Jazz to take on Houston tonight, I wanted to launch a contest to guess what Deron’s stats would be at the All-star break.
I don’t have the prize picked out yet, and it’s not a huge prize, but it will be worth at least two minutes of your time filling out a quick form.
Here’s what you have to do. First, fill out the form below with your guesses for Deron’s FG%, points per game, and assists per game. The final stat is guessing how many total assists he’ll have at the break. That will be the tie-breaker.
The scoring will work like this. The differences between Deron’s actual stats and your prediction will be added up. The lowest difference would win. So you can be a little high or a little low. We’re just talking difference from the actual stat. If it’s tied, that’s when the tie-breaker of total assists comes in.
So if I guessed .515, 21.3, and 12.2 and his stats were actually .520, 20.9, and 11.9, you would have,
.520-.515 = .05
21.3 – 20.9 = .4
12.2 – 11.9 = .3
Total = .75
For the tie-breaker, it’s Price is Right style. So whoever is closest without going over wins. Should we still be tied, we’ll flip a coin or both people will get a prize.
The big kicker. You have to re-tweet this post on Twitter and be following @votederon if you’re not already doing so.
If you’re still anti-twitter, you can still participate, you just won’t be able to win.
You have until the end of the week (Nov 7 @ 11:59:59 PM) to get your guesses in. You have to re-tweet during that time as well.
Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 56%
