Once More, With Feeling: Reviewing Marvin Williams' Years in Atlanta

Previously: Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Larry Drew, Rick Sund

In retrospect, Marvin Williams' time with the Atlanta Hawks never made more sense than the night he was drafted. Oh, in hindsight it was a mistake to take Marvin ahead of Chris Paul or, to a significantly lesser* extent, Deron Williams, but it was a mistake 28 other teams likely would have made. It's only in pairing hindsight with selective memory, forgetting Deron Williams' college playing weight, forgetting how bad Wake Forest was defensively, forgetting the final two weeks of Chris Paul's college career were lowlighted by both his punch to Julius Hodge's groin and a second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament as a 2-seed, that drafting Marvin Williams becomes a singular, spectacular act of incompetence.

(I understand you may disagree. For me to take you seriously, you'll need to cite your work. An unsupported "I knew back then" is not convincing. Here's mine. There is much wrong within.)

There were questions about Paul and Williams. Marvin Williams was potential. He didn't fulfill much that potential as an Atlanta Hawk. It's unclear how much of that was due to his limitations, unrecognized during the 22 minutes a game he played during his lone season at North Carolina, and how much was due to organizational dysfunction.

*In hindsight, Utah made a pretty sizable mistake in taking Williams ahead of Paul, too, though that generally goes unmentioned.

On his rookie deal, Williams often played ahead of the superior Josh Childress. Once the Hawks, quite reasonably, chose the younger Williams over Childress and signed Marvin to a sizable extension, the team, quite inexplicably, became disillusioned with him almost immediately. Despite the sizable extension and Williams being the only legit small forward on the roster, he found himself in a reduced role that never gave him a chance to justify the contract. Not that he would have justified it, given the chance. His almost tragically poor playoff performances added to the impression that Williams was not one to seize the moment.

Williams took grief for being an okay player drafted two spots ahead of an all-time great. For being offered a long, large extension despite being, in his brighter stretches, no more than a useful player. For his usefulness coming in ways likely to be unappreciated. In Atlanta, Marvin Willliams came to tick many of the boxes on the list of ways to be an underrated player: an efficient, low-volume scorer who didn't turn the ball over, a slightly above average defender, and a fine rebounder who played only 30 minutes a game.

Much like Joe Johnson, but at a lesser cost, Marvin Williams couldn't hope to match the organization's over-investment in his talents, especially given how he was utilized. Exactly like Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams is not his contract, nor is he what might have been had the Atlanta Hawks never acquired him. Marvin Williams is an adequate player who, in fresh circumstances, could, in his age-26 and age-27 seasons, justify the final two years of his contract. For his sake, I hope he gets that chance in Utah.