Bits from Deron Williams + Ronnie Price Podcast

The hackingest point guards in Jazz history
Deron Williams: [Ronnie Price] is a hack. I think I’ve played against some of the hackingest point guards in practice in the world, between you, Earl Watson —

Ronnie Price: Earl’s a hack.

DW: — and Brevin Knight.

RP: Brevin’s just small.

DW: You’re a hack too. You just don’t want to admit that you’re a hack.

RP: I’m not a hack. I just, you know, sometimes I reach and sometimes I may not hit the basketball and you may get–

DW: If we weren’t such good friends, I think we would’ve fought by now.

On Utah winters
RP: If I had Deron Williams’ career, I wouldn’t be living [in Utah] in the winter either. I’m just gonna be honest…I would come in when the weather’s good and I would leave when the weather’s bad. That’s the goal.

This one time, in Orlando…
RP: OK, Orlando. Orlando, we all went out and came back and had a few, I don’t know, should I say, I mean, we had a few with drinks with the coaches. Let’s say a slight amount of drinks, and we ran into our staff, and we had more drinks. And then, yeah, so we wrestled from the time we walked into the hotel lobby all the way into the elevator all the way up to the rooms, and then it escalated when we got to the rooms. There may have been some security guards present, here and there, knocking on the door. I could say that there was a couch that may have been, um, destroyed.

DW: There was a couch and a couple of lamps.

RP: Yeah, maybe a lamp or two. And you know, I knew better, ’cause I didn’t wrestle Der–I mean, Deron was always grabbing, wrestling and throwing someone around the locker room every once in a while, you know what I mean, just to prove that he was, I guess, strong, I don’t know. But we had an interesting teammate who was a very strong human being, and he goes by the name of Wes Matthews. So watching Deron and Wes, you know, go at it — and Wes was young, but Wes, at that time, we called him “Angry Man.” We still call him “Angry Man.” But Wes was always trying to prove a point, and Wes was trying to prove a point to Deron that day.

DW: That he was real strong.

…

RP: So, here’s the thing. So, everyone was doing it like joking, having fun, but Wes was serious.

DW (in unison): Serious.

RP: And —

DW: There’s always that one guy.

RP: Right, so Deron, you know, put him in a headlock, but then Wes is so strong he would just pick Deron up and you know, try to slam him. But then, he was, like, really trying to, like, [hurt him]. Yeah, so we kinda s–took a step back. I think it was CJ Miles in the room at that time and maybe Paul [Millsap], I can’t remember. We kinda s–took a step back and was like, Wes is serious. And Deron’s still laughing…There could’ve been a wall broke. I think it was Minnesota, was, we–d–was that in–?

DW: No, that was Atlanta.

RP: Atlanta. See, I get them all mixed up.

DW: ‘Cause I had to pay for that one.

RP: Yeah, Deron paid for that. That was in CJ’s room.

DW: They had to shut the room down…I had to pay for the room for an extra night when we left, so they could fix it.

Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise which rookie it was that pissed D-Will off.

Extracurricular injuries
RP: Man, we had a lot of fun, man. We had a lot of fun. I actually — Deron, you might remember this. We were kicking basketballs up in the stands. You know, making the rookies [retrieve them]. And you know, I used to be a, I actually was a punter when I was a little kid. I could kick, you know, pretty good. So, we kicked so many basketballs, I actually, like, strained my quad. Remember that, Deron?

DW: So, the thing was, we didn’t know — like, it was, like, two days later, our, both the same muscle was hurting on our leg, and we were like, what did we do? Like, we couldn’t figure it out.

RP: (in unison) We couldn’t figure it out.

DW: Ronnie almost missed a game because of that.

RP: Yeah, like, I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to play. Like, it w–it got that severe. So, I’m like, man, I, we, you know, what do I say? I didn’t have an injury that just happened in the middle of a game or practice. I’m sitting there icing and getting therapy on my quad, and it was from kicking basketballs. And I never told them what it was for.

DW: You know what it was? We, you know, I think I’m the one who figured it out because, like, two weeks later — so, the day we, it started really hurting, we kicked, like, maybe like two racks of balls up to the top level. Like, we were just booting them, ’cause they, the rookies had pissed us off. And so, the next time it happened, it was, like, only one rookie and w–and I remember I kicked, like, three balls. And it was, like, a little sore after that. And I’m like, oh, that’s what it was.

Epic Call of Duty games
RP: We had some of the greatest Call of Duty games that took place after —

DW: Oh, man.

RP: — we got back from road trips. So, we would get back from a long road trip, get home at, like, one in the morning. Everyone would fly, like, literally, drive as fast as we possibly could, home. And Deron always had the fastest car, by the way, so he would get home [first]. But, we would get home and then go and sign on and play Call of Duty for another three to four hours ’til, like, three, four in the morning, and then show up to practice talking about our Call of Duty game tonight…So, I mean, it was, like, really epic battles. We had a real squad. There’d be, had a real — like, I had my role, Deron had his r–like, everyone had roles, and we were pretty good.

Andrei Kirilenko’s reading
RP on AK: He would read before games. Deron knows. He would read these huge novels. They were huge novels. He would sit in his locker room and just read these novels before every game. So, I mean, you know, there’s a lot of guys who have a lot of different interests that are athletes, and it is kind of cool to see and hear what different, what guys are interested in.

DW: Every game of his career, he never chan–you know, everybody has a routine…Like, most people come in, they’ll get some treatment. They’ll go out and they’ll shoot, stretch. You know, some guys, like, do some little, like, lifting, or, you know, just to, you know, get your, foam roll, whatever. AK, every game, would come in. He would get dressed in his full outfit. Full uniform —

RP (in unison): Full uniform.

DW — everything —

RP: No, seriously. Shoes, everything.

DW: Warmups, everything. He would sit down, with his legs crossed, and he would read a book —

RP: Absolutely.

DW: — until it was time to play the game…This was every game of his career, when I — ’cause I played with him again in Brooklyn. Same thing…No warmup, no warm up shots. No nothing.

RP (in unison): Nothing.

DW: Just reading, unless Jeff Hornacek was in town to work him out.

RP: Massive novels…Like the Russian Harry Potter. Like, the big, huge —

DW: Yeah, like 500-page books…We can definitely get him on (the podcast). AK’s a good dude.

RP: He’s a great dude.

CJ Miles was a good little boy
Podcast co-host: CJ was in [Lumpy’s] literally every night.

DW: Yeah, once he turned 21…believe it or not. I used to try to get him to go out.

RP: He wouldn’t.

DW: CJ did not drink ’til he was 21.

RP: That’s true.

DW: I’m dead serious. (Ballers and Brawlers)