OAKLAND – When the subject of Cleveland Cavaliers guard Deron Williams was broached with the Warriors’ Shaun Livingston on Wednesday at NBA Finals Media Day, it was if the temperature inside Oracle Arena dropped several degrees almost instantaneously.
Williams and Livingston are having a reunion of sorts in these Finals. They were starting backcourt mates for one season with the Brooklyn Nets in 2013-14, the year before Livingston joined the Warriors. That season was the last time the Nets made the playoffs, and they even won a postseason series before being dispatched by the Miami Heat and some LeBron James guy.
Now Williams and Livingston will likely lock horns head-to-head on the court as role-playing adversaries off the bench, and, well, that doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a problem. Their memories of each other from that one season together sound a bit detached, and at least from Livingston’s side, downright frosty.
Asked if he and Williams kept in touch after that year, Livingston turned somber and a bit clipped.
“Nah,” he said. “Some guys do, some guys don’t. There’s nothing to that. If I see him, it’s, `What’s up, you healthy, your family good?’ But then you just kind of keep it moving.”
Only moments later, however, Livingston said he still keeps in regular contact with several players from that Nets team, including Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Joe Johnson, and the man who coached them, Jason Kidd. Williams? Nah.
As for Williams, when asked if it’ll feel strange playing head-to-head against Livingston, he didn’t exactly respond like he was going to battle against a close chum.
“Why would it be weird going against Shaun?” he said. “I play against old teammates all the time, pretty much every game I play. It’s nothing.”
A little back story on that Nets team should be noted here. With Williams as the franchise’s centerpiece, Brooklyn made blockbuster moves to acquire Pierce, Garnett, Johnson and Jason Terry. Livingston, just trying to keep his career afloat at that time, also siged on. On paper, it looked like a team that could challenge the Heat in the East, and the incoming players thought that way, too. But the team was just 44-38, and after barely outlasting Toronto in the opening round, got roundly ousted by Miami in five games.
It was a bitter pill, particularly for Pierce and Garnett, who didn’t get along with Williams, and felt he was a petulant underachiever. A number of players didn’t like Williams very much, according to a New York area media member familiar with that team, and that the breakup was decidedly acrimonious.
Livingston rubber-stamped that notion as it applied to Pierce and Garnett.
“It wasn’t necessarily what they signed up for,” Livingston said. “In the back of their mind, when it was all said and done, they kind of felt like it was a short end of the stick. We weren’t happy the way it ended. I was grateful for the season I had, but I wanted to continue to play. too. We felt like we had a chance to beat the Heat. We beat them every time during the season, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Pierce, Livingston and Terry departed after that one season, Garnett followed the next year, and the Nets fell apart as a competitive franchise. After completing three seasons of a five-year, $100 million contract, Williams was waived and given a buyout for the final two years of his deal. He spent two years in Dallas, but was waived by the Mavericks on Feb. 23 this season. He subsequently signed with the Cavaliers four days later.
Livingston doesn’t regret that one year in Brooklyn, as bitter as things got for the team in the end. After several seasons as an NBA vagabond following a devastating knee injury in 2007, he made a career-best 54 starts, averaged 26 minutes and 8.3 points. In one memorable game in Brooklyn, he was instrumental in beating the Warriors. It helped open their eyes about signing him in the off-season.
“It was a big-time steppingstone for me,” Livingston said. “It cast me back into the light throughout the NBA, showing people how healthy I was, how good I felt, how hard I worked to get to that position. It was the right opportunity to be on the platform. I’d been playing on losing teams, 20-25 win teams. It allowed me a chance to showcase myself.”
Livingston admitted so much has changed in three years as he looked back on that 2013-14 season, playing alongside Williams.
“That was a crazy year,” he said. “It was just a totally different situation. I was coming in not knowing what to expect and it was their team. He was more of a bona fide star on that team, as opposed to now, where he’s a complimentary piece, similar to what I am to this team.”
As for facing his old backcourt partner in the Finals, Livingston added, “He’s another ball-handler, a veteran player. They know what he brings to the table. They trust him. I don’t think they necessarily had that before with the second unit when Kyrie (Irving) and LeBron went out of the game. It should be a good matchup. We’ll leave it on the court.”
It appears there was never anything off the court to speak of.
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