Utah Jazz: The ten most golden moments in franchise history
By Caleb Manser
7. Deron Williams out-duels Chris Paul
Back in the 2005 NBA draft, Kevin O’Connor and the Utah Jazz were looking for a point guard.
They were just two seasons removed from John Stockton’s final dance and were rebuilding around Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, and Mehmet Okur. Jerry Sloan had done a heck of a coaching job with Carlos Arroyo and Raul Lopez among others as the point guard rotation, but it was time for an upgrade.
The Jazz packaged three picks on draft day to move up and to the third overall draft spot, where they had a choice of Deron Williams and Chris Paul for a franchise point guard.
They ended up going with D-Will, and CP3 was picked up by New Orleans with the fourth pick, starting a fun rivalry between the two point guards. Their most fun battles in my opinion happened in the 2007-08 season when Paul led his Hornets to 56 wins and the second seed in the Western Conference.
That season Paul had the better stats and win-loss record than Williams, and it became the consensus among NBA fans that CP3 was the better player of the two and the best point guard in the league. That season Paul was voted an All-Star reserve by the Western Conference coaches while Deron Williams was snubbed.
However, when they went head-to-head against each other it was almost always Williams that got the last laugh. In their first 16 games that they played each other before both point guards were traded to bigger markets, Williams and the Jazz went 12-4 against Paul and the Hornets.
In the 2007-08 season, in particular, the Jazz won three of the four games against the Hornets. Take a look at the basic box score stats for Williams vs Paul in those four games:
- Williams: 12 points, 7 assists; Paul: 15 points 6 assists; Jazz won by 28
- Williams: 29 points, 11 assists; Paul: 6 points, 6 assists; Jazz won by 22
- Williams: 22 points, 10 assists; Paul: 24 points, 16 assists; Hornets won by 12
- Williams: 4 points, 16 assists; Paul: 4 points, 9 assists; Jazz won by 11
To make this rivalry even sweeter, both Williams and Paul participated in the Playstation Skills Challenge during All-Star weekend. It was a good opportunity for D-Will to prove he belonged in the All-Star game, and maybe that’s what motivated his win at the skill challenge going head-to-head with CP3.
Williams not only won the challenge his first time trying it but beat Steve Nash‘s record for the fastest time completing the course. When he was presented with the award, there was an audible lack of applause from the New Orleans crowd after he’d stolen the show from their own Chris Paul.