The Clippers are signing and trading for everybody anyway, so it only seems logical that Jason Williams would land there as a free agent as well.
It makes sense for J-Will too. The Clips may be heavily invested in Baron Davis at point guard, but Davis has failed to play 65 games in four of the last six seasons, so chances are good Williams will have a valuable role for a team that expects to push for one of the final Western Conference playoff spots. (Davis did make all 82 in 2007-08 as a Warrior. Before that, though: 63, 54, 46, 67, 50.)
L.A., in turn, gets someone with extensive postseason experience, someone on a one-year deal playing for the next contract and maybe even his NBA future, and someone who is dependable.
Jason Williams. Dependable.
In a related development, ski season opened in the great below.
With hardly anyone in Sacramento noticing, J-Wild has grown up. He's 32 now, turns 33 about three weeks into the regular season and, if you're sitting down, just finished eighth in the league in assist-to-turnover ratio.
It's a meaningful statistic for point guards, just to different extents. The disclaimer is that Brevin Knight was second (after Jose Calderon and before Chris Paul) and Travis Diener was fourth, while Sebastian Telfair and Anthony Johnson were ahead of Deron Williams and Steve Nash. But it's one of the reasons the Kings had Williams on their fallback list if Beno Udrih left as a free agent and the preferred replacement, Chris Duhon, signed elsewhere.
The Kings felt all along this was a different Williams than the one from early in his career, and they would know best. The belief was that he has personally matured.
The certainty is that he has grown professionally.
Williams' assist-to-turnover ratio his first three seasons, all with Sacramento:
1998-99: 2.09-1.
1999-2000: 1.99-1.
2000-01: 2.60-1.
And in the last two seasons, both with the Heat:
2005-06: 2.87-1.
2006-07: 3.22-1.
The Kings liked him and Williams definitely liked the idea of a return engagement, even as the backup to Udrih, but Sac signed untested Bobby Brown for less money instead and will officially add Bobby Jackson this week when the Ron Artest-to-Houston deal goes final next week. Thursday, he signed with the Clippers as part of their summer of reconstruction that includes bringing in Davis, trading Knight for Jason Hart in a swap of point guards, getting Marcus Camby from the Nuggets, losing Elton Brand and Corey Maggette as free agents, signing Ricky Davis and drafting Eric Gordon.
The upheaval leaves Williams as a backup for the first time in his career, Baron's health willing. He's had injury issues himself -- 67 games last season, and 61 and 59 before that -- so that's not such a bad thing for a player who needs to conserve his body. It's like he's getting older or something.
