I watch a lot of games. I see players come and go but now we have one here who deserves a lot of credit – deserves to be appreciated and not traded again and again. “
His name is Lou Williams and he plays for the Los Angeles Clippers. At least I think he does but I haven’t checked yet this morning. So it’s possible he’s been traded just like he has been more times than a player of his caliber should be.
Williams’ story interests me a lot because he’s played well for the Lakers and once scored 44 points in a game and now plays for the Clippers where he scored a career high 50 last week against the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
Maybe he got tired scoring 50 because in the next game he scored only 30.
The story that fascinates me a lot about Williams is he began his NBA career by becoming the NBA’s sixth man of the year playing for Toronto.
But soon he became a free agent and joined the Lakers.
Maybe he’s not a great defensive player but he sure is a solid pro who should be appreciated.
But the Lakers traded him at the start of the season – Magic Johnson’s first move when he was hired to bring the Lakers back to glory.
Magic knows the inner workings of an NBA franchise and had his reasons for making that move. But I never would have done it. The Lakers aren’t a great shooting team and were lucky to have Williams. At least that’s how I see it.
Williams was traded to Houston but was quickly traded again, this time to the Clippers.
So not only have the Lakers let Williams go but they have to watch him do remarkable things for the rival team in Los Angeles.
This column wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that there’s speculation that the Clippers will trade him later this season.
That’s because he’s an asset and would likely be replaced by a younger player. This is the kind of talk we hear around the NBA as the trading deadline approaches.
I’m also hearing the Clippers won’t trade him because they’re getting very happy with his offensive play,
Williams is 31 and I see no reason why he won’t give a team several more years of solid play.
Williams’ superb play is part of a story on how well the Clippers have functioned this season despite a huge amount of injuries. Somehow Doc Rivers has been able to put a group of pros, some quite unknown to most of us on the court as the victories mount.
A month or two ago it looked like the Clippers weren’t going to make the playoffs. Now they’ve climbed back into contention..
The other night I was surprised to see Blake Griffin, Theodosi and all playing.
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