Since July when he signed on the dotted line, Deron Williams has always sounded serious and excited about playing in Turkey for Besiktas,
Since that same July day, there have been doubters, people in the game that say he will not play or not play long for the Turkish side.
Thursday Williams boarded a plane for Turkey, and as you read this he should be in Istanbul. But that hasn’t changed opinions, and the fact he admitted the wrist he had surgery on after the season is still not 100 percent now plays a factor in those thoughts. People wonder why a guy on the verge of his biggest NBA payday next summer (when he becomes a free agent after opting out of the last year of his deal) would risk playing overseas. To make my point, read this from the New York Daily News.
But his recovery has been closely watched because several NBA team executives think that his wrist issues will give him a perfectly legitimate excuse to bail on Besiktas, a second-tier team, if he finds that living in Turkey isn’t for him. The countdown for his return to the U.S. will start in earnest the first time he gets hacked on the wrist….
“I’m excited,” he said last Saturday, about his new overseas career. “I think it’ll be exciting to go over there and play basketball, for one, while everybody else isn’t. It’ll just be an exciting time for my family. See a new culture.”
Williams seems to have the right mindset about this, he seems to be genuinely excited. But the only way he will prove the doubters wrong is to still be in Turkey in a couple months.