The Nets point guard, who admittedly struggled with his confidence a year ago, fell under heavy scrutiny last season because he went scoreless in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Miami. Bryant chimed in on the subject in a Sports Illustrated article last month, saying Williams “psyched himself out” because he only took nine shots that game and “I would go 0-for-30 before I went 0-for-9.”
Williams said Sunday that Bryant's mentality doesn't work for him. “I’m a point guard. If I'm 0-for-(expletive)-9, I'm not shooting 20 more shots. Not going to happen,” Williams said following the second day of training camp. “I'm a point guard. I'm going to find somebody else. Kobe Bryant, that's what he's supposed to do. He's got that mentality. That works for him, I got my mentality, it works for me.”
“I understand Kobe and all those guys, ‘I’m going to do this, the next shot is going in.’ That’s great confidence but it doesn’t matter if you don’t make the next shot,” Hollins said. “I just want Deron to play good basketball. There are a lot of expectations on him. I don’t know the reasons why — the status he had when he was playing here, the contract. Whatever it may be, Deron Williams is a very good basketball player and Deron Williams is going to prove that this year with this team. And you guys are going to love him. Or respect him. “To say that nobody has doubt, nobody ever thinks that things are not gonna work out are untrue because we’re all human and we’re not perfect humans,” Hollins added. “So I really would hope that as we go along that you guys — we’re talking about embracing (expectations) or not embracing — I would hope you guys would embrace Deron for his play on the court and that be all it is without the expectations that he’s supposed to.