Wolves' Williams patiently working hard
BY JON KRAWCZYNSKI Associated Press
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
12/11/12 at 5:27 AM
MINNEAPOLIS - The minutes have come and gone for Derrick Williams this season. Truthfully, they've been mostly gone for almost a month now.
The former No. 2 overall draft pick doesn't pout or whine behind the scenes. He just keeps working in hopes that his chance will come with the Minnesota Timberwolves sooner rather than later.
"Just try to keep working," Williams said on Monday after practice. "Just because you're not playing, you can't stop working. Just pushing myself a little harder."
The highest draft choice in franchise history has not played in four of the last nine games for the Wolves, with coach Rick Adelman preferring the veteran Dante Cunningham as the primary backup to All-Star Kevin Love at power forward. That hasn't prompted him to demand a trade or grouse publicly about his situation.
He was the only player on the team to play in all 66 games of the lockout-shortened season last year, but his inconsistent performances didn't sit well with coach Rick Adelman. Williams went to work in the offseason, slimming down and reshaping his body in hopes of moving from power forward, where Love gets most of the minutes, to small forward.
But the team signed Andrei Kirilenko in the offseason to be the starting small forward, and Williams' playing time has suffered for it. He was in the starting lineup on opening night and for much of the first month of the season while Love recovered from a broken right hand. He had 23 points, seven rebounds and four blocks in a loss at Golden State on Nov. 16, but hasn't played more than 16 minutes in a game since.
Not coincidentally, that is the last game Love missed because of his injury. Adelman was blunt when Love returned that some players were going to see their minutes go down. So far, that player has been Williams.
And so far, Williams is taking it in stride.
"I'm a patient player," he said. "I just have to do with what I have. If I get 10 minutes, I get 10 minutes and I just try and do what I can with that."
Adelman has long had a reputation for favoring veterans over young players, and it's clear that Cunningham's steady play and hard-nosed defense has won the coach over early this season. Williams started this season slow offensively, struggling to knock down shots at a consistent rate.
"I'm not the coach. I don't control the minutes," said Williams, who is averaging 9.0 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. "I just control whatever I can control. Show up in practice, keep working hard, staying after practice and lift weights, things like that. That's what I've been doing."
And despite his name again surfacing in trade rumors surrounding Pau Gasol last week, Williams made it clear Monday he has not requested to be moved.
