After spending six years in Utah, one former Jazz star is speaking the brutal truth about the team.
During a recent interview on “The Ringer NBA Show,” retired ex-All-Star Deron Williams opened up about the realities of playing in Utah.
“I’ve been around all the best players in the world,” said Williams. “I played in the Olympics, right? And I was trying to recruit everybody. I’m talking everybody. Nobody’s coming to Utah.
“And I know, I’m a really good player at the time,” Williams went on. “But I know, Number 1, I’m a point guard. You don’t win championships with just a point guard. You need pieces. We need other pieces. All I saw, the writing on the wall was, nobody is gonna come to Utah. Not one person I’ve ever talked to was interested in coming to Utah. It just was a reality.”
For Williams, a three-time All-Star in Utah who won gold for Team USA during the Olympics in 2008 and 2012, you can understand where he is coming from. He was drafted by the Jazz in 2005 and did not choose to go there. In fact, of the last twelve NBA All-Stars in Utah history, only two of them (Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur) signed with the team as free agents. Rudy Gobert (draft), Donovan Mitchell (draft), Mike Conley (trade), Gordon Hayward (draft), Williams (draft), Andrei Kirilenko (draft), Karl Malone (draft), John Stockton (draft), Mark Eaton (draft), and Adrian Dantley (trade) did not voluntarily decide to go to the Jazz.
Utah ranked as the 30th-biggest TV market in sports in 2021 (per Nielsen) and will never be a hot location for free agents. As for Williams’ comments, we know of one current NBA player who will definitely agree with them.
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