Former Miami Heat and Memphis Grizzlies star Jason Williams recently appeared on the Flagrant podcast alongside Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh. The 2006 NBA champion gave his take on winning championships in response to a question about former Kings player and current assistant coach Doug Christie. After Schulz joked that Williams never “wanted to play defense,” he responded by claiming that he did not get paid to do so.
Advertisement
Williams suggested that offense was his sole responsibility during his time in the NBA, and said that for him, defense never won championships. While the take was contrary to the popular saying, Williams explained it by taking the example of Ben Wallace and Allen Iverson.
“I didn’t get paid to play D. Defense doesn’t win championships for me. You got to score to win, right? I say all the time, you want 5 Ben Wallaces, or 5 Allen Iversons? Who’s winning that game? Right bro, defense helps though,” he said.
Comedian and co-host Aakash Singh responded by talking about how Stephen A. Smith previously suggested the game would be won by Wallace on the basis of “physicality alone.” However, Williams responded by claiming that the 5 Ben Wallaces would simply foul out.
“They are gonna foul out. Ben Wallace is gonna foul out. You know what else people don’t realize? Now I am guarding Allen Iverson, he gets by me, and now the big guy has to come and help. My big guy, defensively, and he gets in foul trouble, or AI dumps it off to his man, now he has got 32 by the end of the night,” he said.
Williams explained that Iverson’s presence not only meant that the opposition had a constant scoring threat to take care of. AI’s playmaking skills meant that he could easily help his teammates score more as well, an aspect of his game that was being ignored during the debate.
Williams eventually said that while he realized “defense helped,” which led to Singh claiming how the Golden State Warriors, despite their offensive talents, tend to “fold” without Draymond Green. Williams retorted by claiming that while they may struggle without Green, however, without Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the Warriors will never have a chance of winning championships, even if Green is fully fit and at his best.
Jason Williams’ take on defense analyzed with stats
Williams’ take on defense and the fact that it was not “necessary” for championships is bound to attract criticism. Historically, a post on the r/NBA subreddit analyzes the offensive and defensive ratings of NBA champions from 1981 to 2020.
Historically speaking, while there have been teams that won the championship despite being only above-average in defense or offense, most teams tend to be offensively or defensively, great, for lack of a better word. The 2020 Lakers, for example, were the 11th-best offensive team in the NBA, but the 3rd best defense.
Others, such as the 2015 Warriors, were gifted in both areas. They were 2nd-best defensively and the best offensive team during the season. Hence, while there might be exceptions, it seems that statistics prove Jason Williams’s take wrong, according to the Reddit post.
