- Former
Utah Jazz star Deron Williams said he attempted to recruit other stars to the team, but no one wanted to play in Utah. - Williams said he knew he needed help to get the team to the next level, but couldn't find it.
- Williams was traded from the Jazz to the Nets in 2011 after a clash that led then-head coach Jerry Sloan to retire mid-season.
Former All-Star guard Deron Williams attempted to build a contender on the Utah Jazz, but couldn't find many takers on joining him in Salt Lake City.
Williams said on The Ringer's "Real Ones" podcast that during his prime years with the Jazz, he attempted to recruit help from other
"I had been around all the best players in the world," Williams said. "I had played in the Olympics. I was trying to recruit everybody. I'm talking everybody. Nobody's coming to Utah."
Over five-and-half seasons in Utah, Williams averaged 17 points and 9 assists per game, made two All-Star teams, and was considered one of the best point guards in the NBA. From 2006-2010, the Jazz had made the playoffs four straight seasons, winning an average of 51 games per year, but advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs just once, in 2006-07.
Williams said he knew he needed help, but couldn't get it.
"I'm a really good player at the time. I know: No. 1, I'm a point guard. You don't win championships with just a point guard. You need pieces. We need other pieces," Williams said. "All I saw, the writing on the wall, nobody's going to come to Utah. No person I ever talked to was interested in coming to Utah. It just was a reality. So, I felt like I had to go somewhere else."
Williams had said he had "hinted" to then-Jazz owner Greg Miller that he was going to leave when his contract expired.
The 2010-11 season spiraled out of control for Utah. The team struggled to integrate new pieces and Williams clashed with late head coach Jerry Sloan, who believed Williams was taking too much control of the offense.
Williams described one halftime locker-room clash with Sloan which prompted Sloan's sudden decision to retire after 23 seasons with the team. Williams said that he told management to trade him to allow Sloan to say as the head coach, but to no avail.
Sloan resigned on February 10, 2011. Less than two weeks later, Williams was traded to the New Jersey Nets.
Williams said on the podcast that he believed the Nets and New York Knicks were bidding for both him and Carmelo Anthony. When Anthony landed on the Knicks, Williams said the Jazz took the Nets' offer.
Despite the at-times rocky relationship with Sloan, who died in May of 2020, Williams had positive things to say about his former coach.
"Definitely things I wish I would have handled differently if I could go back now, but obviously I can't.
"As far as what he meant to me, he meant a lot. There were a lot of lessons that I learned from him that I didn't understand [at the time] ... He honestly was the best coach I ever played for. He wasn't the best Xs and Os coach I ever played for, but as far as just getting people to know their role, to do the right thing, to play in a system, to execute, he was by far the best."