NBA: Lou Williams:”With the confidence of a Michael Jordan”

Lou Williams is with the L. A. Clippers in the form of his life and is now even appearing in all-star conversation. But another question is much more important for the “Professional Getter of Buckets”.

The duel, the L. A. Clippers and the Houston Rockets delivered on Tuesday night at the Staples Center will be remembered for a variety of reasons – most notably because Clint Capela was made a Trojan horse, while Chris Paul and some “minions” sneaked through some secret passageways to take revenge on Austin Rivers. The already legendary segment at Inside the NBA with live reactions by Shaquille O’ Neal and Charles Barkley should make the whole thing immortal.

An equally entertaining subplot of the whole story was again a statement by Paul after the game, who called Lou Williams “Go-to-Guy” of the Clippers. This was seen as a disregard by Blake Griffin, the team’s designated franchise player – rightly so. But the statement that the antipathy between Paul and Griffin was not so absurd was actually not.

The Clippers have been one of the league’s hottest teams in recent weeks and have won eleven of the last 14 games – including two victories against Houston and one against Golden State. They also scored more points than all the other teams (116 per game) during this period. And the go-to-guy, at least in the last few weeks, is actually Lou Williams.

Now, the Sixth Man of the Year of 2014/15 (with Toronto) has been known for years as a professional scorer, one of the more efficient microwaves of the recent past. But in his 13. NBA season, the 31-year-old now plays at an unprecedented level.

He scores more points than ever (23.3), he also plays a lot more assists (5) – and sets up much better odds than in all previous seasons. Its effective Field Goal Percentage (54.4 percent) corresponds almost exactly to Paul’s value. Only 15 players scored more points this season than Williams on average, although Williams only opened 12 of 42 games as a starter.

Since 22. On December 13th, Sweet Lou even added another good spell to his game – over the last 13 games he scored an average of 31.2 points, hitting almost absurd 46 percent of his threesomes. He gave the Warriors 50 points (27 points in a quarter!), Hornet’s 40 – seen over the season, only four players played 35 more games than Williams (6).

“There are such types of players we call professional scorers – Lou, Jamal Crawford, and Paul Pierce,”Doc Rivers recently told Bleacher Report,”He scores in every possible way. You can’t send him to the left because he’s deadly from everywhere. That’s why the whole league sends him to the right, and Lou loves it. The only key for me is to avoid him.”

Williams has indeed almost every litter in his repertoire. This season, he not only takes (and hits) the threesome more than ever before, he also scores six free throws per game, 90.6 percent of which he sinks. He can pull out of the middle distance and with shake-and-bake arias he can almost always get the space to pull the trigger.

His creativity and team spirit (Williams prepares 27 percent of his team-mates’ field goals when he’s on the court) have kept the Clippers in the top ten despite countless injuries and a squad full of G-League alumni.

Williams himself is not surprised by the best season of his career and recently declared very soberly:”The older I get, the clearer I see the game. I’m not focusing on the one standing in front of me. Now I just know where and how to score. There’s some spots I’ll succeed at if they send me there.”

Lately it seems like these spots are almost everywhere on the court. After Williams was chosen twice in a row as a player of the week in the West and especially this incredible game against Golden State, the first voices have long since begun to bring him into the all-star conversation – which would be a premiere for him, of course.

But he doesn’t care much about the talk:”I’m doing my job just like I always do,”says Williams,”and when you’re concerned with such expectations, you can lose the concept that you just want to win games. You just want to look at yourself. That’s not how I play the game.”

In principle, it doesn’t matter – Williams plays aggressively in an all-star form, but in the West better players than him (Damian Lillard, for example) were not considered because the conference in the backcourt is incredibly deep. It would certainly be a nice story if he could make it.

For him personally, however, it would be an even nicer story if he played for the Clippers at that time.

The situation of Williams, who has played for five different teams over the past five years, is rather opaque: his contract expires, but he may sign an extension during the season – according to Yahoo! Sports have already taken place.

How these will proceed is, of course, also linked to the further constitution of the clippers. As you know, their season is also on razor’s edge: Right now they are in the middle of the play-off race (place 9), but before the turnaround of the last few weeks there have also been thoughts about dissolving the whole thing – among other things, there was a request in Minnesota to see if the Wolves didn’t want Griffin. There have also been trade rumours about DeAndre Jordan.

If the recent breakdowns (Jordan, Austin Rivers) lead to the loss of a few games at a time, this could quickly recur. And then, of course, Williams would have great trade value in the current form – a fearless and at the same time highly efficient scorer from the bank would be a lot of contenders (Boston? Minnesota? Cleveland?) to face.

Williams himself is of course aware of the fact that the chances of a trade being traded up to the deadline of 8th trading day are very high. February always exists. In the calendar year 2017 alone, he was traded twice, once from the Lakers to the Rockets and then from the Rockets to the Clippers, in trade for CP3. However, he hopes that things will turn out differently this time.

“Honestly, I hope I don’t end the season anywhere else,”Williams recently said to ClutchPoints,”I give my heart and soul to this team to keep us in the race somehow despite the injuries. I would like to find a home here, I am slowly developing a bond with the others. I hope to be here at the end of the year.”

That’s still in the stars at the moment, the clippers seem too volatile. And the question of whether a multi-year investment is really worthwhile – is it just an epic hot streak or has it really made clicks? The fact that a Guard with 31 is by far the best season of his career is not due to the usual circumstances.

Williams will not allow himself to be deterred by the fact that his situation is unclear – he knows the whole thing too well for that. He will be transferred to the 8. But first and foremost, just do what he does best: take care of buckets. In a shop where you can’t control a lot, he has at least that in his hand – and is aware of it.

“Lou is not the biggest player, he’s not the fastest and he doesn’t jump,”said DeMar DeRozan, who spent a year with Williams in Toronto and has been calling him a “brother” ever since.”But he plays with the confidence of a Michael Jordan.”