Marvin Williams

Marvin Williams
PF - 6’9, 237lbs - 32 years old - 13 years of experience

Williams is the fifth option on offence, and that option is to be a weakside catch-and-shoot threat. He was good at this this season, averaging a career-best 41.3% from three-point range. It came on only 3.9 attempts per game while playing 25.3 minutes per contest. Not all shooters are taking the same difficulty and frequency of shots, and so simply comparing their overall percentages is uninsightful. But 41.3% is pretty tidy, no matter how open they all were.

Defensively, given that he is now firmly entrenched as a face-up stretch four, Williams hustles about and does a good job of competing with guys like himself. He does not play defence with his hands, block shots at the rim, or rebound much (a mere 10.0% rate this season), yet he tracks quite well and does not back down.

However, all of the above, even the good bits, do unfortunately not make Williams worth the money he is getting. On the downside of his career, he surely never will live up to this contract. Heady yet quiet, Williams disappears for stretches, as can any player who needs setting up all the time and who does not win many possessions. Williams betters any team he is on, including this one, yet his production is slipping in the latter years of his career, and he is only a starter on teams with no other options. This is a good glue guy for better-than-glue-guy money. You can just sign Anthony Tolliver instead.

RANDOM MEANINGLESS FACT - Marvin Williams has averaged 0.8 turnovers per game for six consecutive seasons. This pleases the weirder ones amongst us who like such uniformity in our lives.

Player Plan: Two years and $29,093,750 remaining, the last of which is a player option. Could very much foresee this winding up in a stretch/playoff buyout situation at some point during the 2019/20 season. For now, move if possible, but not giving up things of value to do so.

Marvin Williams
SF/PF, 6’9, 237lbs, 31 years old, 12 years of experience

Put up pretty much the exact same performance as the previous year - rebounding almost identical, three-point attempt rate almost identical, usage rate almost identical, average defensive impact much the same - but he had to ride a lot of inconsistency in order to do that. There was also a decline in his scoring efficiency, as the anomalous 40.2% three-point stroke of the year prior came back down (35.0%) and returned to pretty much his career average (35.0%). Williams has three years left on his contract at a price above that of an average starter, yet at this point, that it what he is, with age now against him.

Player Plan: Three years and $42,262,500 remaining, including a player option for 2019/20. Quite a lot of money for an inconsistent fringe starter on the wrong side of 30. A useful part of the team, but certainly not an invaluable one.

[T]he amnesty clause (that we're having to pretend will exist here, but which almost certainly will exist in some form) will further expand the range of available talents. A lot of decent players are going to become available, not because they can't play the game, but because they can't justify their contract. A lot of the candidates are obvious and inevitable, some perhaps less so. Here's a potential list:

- Atlanta: Marvin Williams - Due to their own ill-discpline, Atlanta are pretty capped out. They needn't have been, for aforementioned Joe Johnson-related reasons. But they are, and the presence of Marvin Williams (three years and circa $25 million remaining) is a further hinderance. Williams stopped improving once he got paid, and is now a mere fringe starter, a man seemingly contented with doing little more than shooting long twos. Trying to trade him would only cost assets.