Lou Williams gives sellers remorse over and over

Phil Gurnee ♦ December 30, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Watching Lou Williams once again decimate the Lakers on Friday Night, I got to thinking that every team that has traded him, has to be suffering from sellers remorse and he’s been traded three times in five years.

Lou Williams was traded by the Hawks in the summer of 2014 for John Salmons. Lou would go onto win his first Sixth man of the Year award, while John Salmons played one year before retiring.

On July 9th, 2015, the Lakers signed Lou Williams who quickly become their best scorer but the team was going nowhere so they traded him to the Houston Rockets for Corey Brewer and a 2017 1st round pick which turned into Tony Bradley.  The Lakers traded Tony Bradley to Utah for Josh Hart, so I guess they got value as Josh Hart has been a nice addition but he’s no Lou Williams.  More on that in a moment.

Houston only kept Lou for 1/2 a season before sending him to the Clippers in the Chris Paul trade. Houston got a legendary point guard on the wrong side of 30 and are now paying Chris Paul a ridiculous $185 Million over the next five years. Chris Paul hasn’t been able to play over 60 games since he was thirty and if you tell me that doesn’t matter as long as he’s healthy in the postseason, remind me the last time Chris Paul played a full set of healthy postseason games? I don’t think Clipper or Rocket fans can remember.  And guess what? He’s hurt again. In return, the Clippers got Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, and Patrick Beverly. I’m not going to say that Lou Williams right now is better than Chris Paul but I’m going to ask you who would you rather have in an NBA cap league. Chris Paul at five years and $185 Million or Lou Williams at two years and $16 Million?  Lou Williams won his second Sixth Man of the Year award in 2017-2018. He also was one of the best scorers in the 4th quarter. He is so important to the Clipper offense in 2018 that when he missed four games the 21 – 15 Clippers lost them all.  With Lou, the Clippers are 21 – 11, without him they are 0 – 4.  Seems like he’s kind of important to the team.

The NBA is a young man’s league but Lou Williams seems to be getting better. He’s shooting 38% on three-pointers, averaging almost 5 assists a game, and scoring 18 points a game while playing only 25 minutes per game. His PER is 20.5, there are only 16 NBA players in the past two years have played significant minutes and who are over the age of 30 that have a PER > 20.  

Chris Paul made that list in 2017-2018. He does not make that list this year. Lou Williams is on that list for both years.

Back to the Lakers and Lou. Lou is 5 – 0 playing against the Lakers since they traded him. He has three games over 30 points.  Sellers remorse?