Insider Special: MIP - Style Over Substance?

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NBA Most Improved Player: Will Williams have substance over style?

By Terry Brown

Monday, October 21 Updated 10:51 AM EST

No, not that Jayson Williams.

This Jason Williams.

The player drafted No. 7 in the 1988 draft by the Sacramento Kings because Jerry West, then the general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers and current president of the Memphis Grizzlies, couldn't get his hands on him any sooner. The one with the letters W-H-I-T tattooed between knuckles on one hand and E-B-O-Y on the other. Add earring, more body ink and a shaved head and either you've got one troubled point guard making millions of dollars in between glances over his shoulder for police sirens and lights or the next Most Improved Player in the NBA.

Or both.

He was kicked out of Florida and benched in Sacramento after teaming up with NFL bad boy Randy Moss in high school. He named his dog Sweat Pea to honor Lloyd Daniels, a New York playground legend who finally made it to the NBA with a bullet still lodged in his body.

Oh, yeah. Williams also helped a single mother rebuild her Sacramento home after it burned down. And, if I remember correctly, his daddy's a highway patrolman back home. Badge and all.

Before coming to the Grizzlies, Williams never averaged more than 7.3 dimes per game, had the worst assist-to-turnover ratio this side of organized sports and once missed 360 three-pointers in a single season. That same year, his jersey outsold every other one in the entire NBA as one familiar shoe company gave him comic book status in their ad campaign.

Then . . . Poof!

He disappears off the face of the planet as his former team puts together its greatest season in franchise history and the player who replaced him at point guard becomes the city's savior.

No one even notices that Williams averages career highs in points and assists for the year and has single-game career highs of 38 points against the Rockets in November and 19 assists against the Warriors in March.

He also averages 3.3 turnovers a game and shoots 38 percent from the field and 29 percent the three-point range. The Grizzlies win a Midwest Division-low 23 games and any press reaching that low is focused on Rookie of the Year Pau Gasol, a slick dribbling 7-footer from Spain who American fans still couldn't pick out of a stacked lineup.

The Jason Williams you know and love and hate will play the same amount of minutes and take the same amount of shots this season, and be held subject to the quality of his play rather than the quantity of it.

And, in a perfect world, isn't that how all imperfect Most Improved candidates should be judged.

Darius Miles

Cleveland Cavaliers

Current Stats: 9.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 2.2 apg, 0.8 spg, 1.2 bpg, 48% shooting in 27.2 mpg

Career Stats: 9.4 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 1.7 apg, 0.7 spg, 1.4 bpg, 49% shooting in 26.7 mpg

Get mad. Get pissed. Then everytime you look down at those god-awful uniforms and even worse record, pretend like you're playing your former team, the Clippers, and very conceivably double every important statistic in the book. Miles was neither the best shooting guard, small forward nor power forward in Los Angeles but he is all of the above in Cleveland. And a starter. He may have had more fun in L.A. but has the opportunity to get much funkier here. Rarely does an athlete have the chance to improve his scoring average, overall game and paycheck at the same time.

Tim Thomas

Milwaukee Bucks

Current Stats: 11.7 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.4 apg, 0 .8 spg, 0.4 bpg, 42% shooting in 26.9 mpg

Career Stats: 11.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.4 apg, 0.8 spg, 0.3 bpg, 44% shooting in 24.5 mpg

This is the year Thomas becomes the shooting, driving, post-up threat that he was always supposed to be. This is the year he rebounds like a power forward, passes like a point forward and defends any position even remotely resembling a small forward. This is the year that Thomas puts it all together despite the fact that last season he actually regressed two years worth. This is the year Thomas becomes a full-time starter six seasons after the Sixers tried to do the same thing. This is the year Tim Thomas defines Tim Thomas.

Richard Jefferson

New Jersey Nets

Current Stats: 9.4 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 1.8 apg, 0.8 spg, 0.6 bpg, 45% shooting in 24.3 mpg

Career Stats: same

Sophomores aren't supposed to even be eligible for this award but, then, again, rookies combined in a four-rookie deal on draft day aren't supposed to help their team to the NBA Finals before making the former franchise player expendable. Richard Jefferson could very well go from unheralded undergrad to NBA All-Star in less than two years. Such is the shelf life of professional swingmen.

Al Harrington

Indiana Pacers

Current Stats: 13. 1 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.2 apg, 0.9 spg, 0.4 bpg, 47% shooting in 29.8 mpg

Career Stats: 8 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 1.2 apg, 0.6 spg, 0.2 bpg, 45% shooting in 21.9 mpg

The last time we met, our elastic swingman from Indiana was pushing Corliss Williamson for the Sixthman Award and All-Star teammate Jalen Rose out of a job. But a blown ACL with 8:42 left in a loss to the Celtics in the 44th game of the year ended all that. At the time, he was posting career highs in every single category. From minutes to offensive boards, from blocked shots to three-point shooting. Drafted out of sixth period, Harrington could very well be starting his rookie season in two weeks. Instead, it could be even better.

Jason Williams

Memphis Grizzlies

Current Stats: 14.8 ppg, 3 rpg, 8 apg, 1.7 spg, 0.1 bpg, 38% shooting in 34.4 mpg

Career Stats: 9.6 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 6.7 apg, 1.5 spg, 0.09 bpg, 38% shooting in 33.3 mpg

See above.