It appears that Mr. Williams is once more no longer a part of the Houston Rockets’ regular rotation. During Saturday night’s laugher against the Indiana Pacers, I noted late in the first half that T-Will had yet to enter the game. A twitter follower wondered if the cause behind his absence might be discovery of Williams’ many embarrassing ‘tweets’ during the previous days. I proposed a simple test: if the Rockets’ lead held late into the game, and Williams was still not inserted, the basis was disciplinary; if it held and he came in, he had just been taken out of the rotation.
My rationale was just that if punishing a bench player, you probably hold him out of the game entirely. With the Rockets holding on to a 20 point lead, Williams entered the game late in the 4th quarter.
This obviously was not too scientific of a test. Putting a guy in in the 4th can still be consistent with disciplinary action. But the contextual evidence for my hypothesis was overwhelming: Williams hadn’t been doing the things Rick Adelman values and had been spewing asininity on twitter the entire year.
Those few minutes Williams played on Saturday were some of the most uninspired I’ve seen since Vernon Maxwell’s ’95 Game 1 4th quarter at Utah. (remember? when he missed the last shot and Rudy screamed at him for quitting after the game?) T-Will stood around, hands on hips, disinterestedly, making no attempt to involve himself on either end of the floor when not with the ball. Awkwardly, there were times he seemingly attempted to intercept teammates’ passes to Goran Dragic, almost in an effort to force the issue as bench point guard.
Until further notice, it appears Williams is completely out of the Houston Rockets’ rotation. Many surmised that the cause of his earlier absence was the glut at the position. And the few games he played after Shane Battier’s departure invalidated the ridiculous proposition pushed by some that the basis for the whole thing was some personal vendetta by Adelman. It has become clear that Terrence Williams has been deemed just not good enough to help this team win.
He’s dazzled us in the chances he’s gotten, displaying a passing prowess reminiscent of a former #1. But the bad shots, the refusal to cut or defend and the overall piss-poor attitude may just have been too much for Adelman. From my seat, I would have kept T-Will in the lineup, and given him all the minutes he could handle; I’m big on player development with an eye to the future. But the Hall-of-fame coach has most likely decided that in this contract year, during this playoff push, Terrence Williams cannot help him win.
This is all conjecture and if Williams checks in mid-way through the 2nd tonight against the Kings, this piece can enter the dustbin of premature analysis. But if confirmed, with T-Will truly having been pushed out, what does it all say about the general manager-coach divide? What does it say about Moreyball and statistical analysis? Morey paid quite a premium–a future #1–for Williams; it must be unsettling to see that investment rotting away without having been given much of a chance. But perhaps of greater significance, he did what most assumed antithetical to his MO: he took a risk on a prototypical headcase, an athletic, orthodoxically impressive swingman with problems between the ears. Moreso than anything, that’s further confirmation that for Morey, the strategy is not about adherence to some strict mold of player identification, but rather, simply, pursuit of undervalued commodities, in whatever form they may be.
‘Huq’s Pen’ is a daily column of musings written by Red94 founder/editor Rahat Huq.
