Magic Connected To Jason Williams

Remember White Chocolate? His interviews with Randy Moss and C-Webb? His highlight reel of passes including his famous off of the elbow pass? Well, White Chocolate (better known as Jason Williams) is planning a return to the NBA. He may not be the same White Chocolate that fans grew to love but he can still be an effective NBA PG.

The New York Knicks were the first team to make a waiver claim on him and had the exclusive rights to sign him, but those exclusive rights have expired. The Knicks are seemingly putting all of their eggs in the Ramon Sessions basket.

The Magic are seriously interested in Williams because they still don’t know if they have the means to acquire CJ Watson. The Memphis Grizzlies are also reportedly interested.

Williams sat out last season, retiring to spend more time with his family. He previously had stints in Miami, Memphis and Sacramento. He was the starting PG on Miami’s 2006 championship team, averaging 10.9 PPG and 5.3 APG. He has career averages of 11.4 PPG, 6.3 APG and 2.27 Turnovers per game. He was known as a turnover machine earlier in his career but as he became a smarter, less flashy player he really lowered his turnover numbers. He hasn’t averaged over 2 turnovers per game since 2002-03. Williams had a good field goal percentage and was a pretty solid 3-point shooter for Miami, where he spent the last 2 years of his career. Williams is 33 years old so he should have some gas left in the tank.

He has had a year off, but he could still be a pretty solid player and a decent option as a backup PG. Newsday’s Alan Hahn reported that Williams is in good shape.

One person came away from Williams’ workout Tuesday saying he “looked good” and that he was “in great shape.”

The Orlando Sentinel named a few other options for the Magic at the position.

Point-guard wise, there are still a lot of inexpensive options available in addition to Williams. C.J. Watson is still rumored be one of them, though he’s a restricted free agent so Golden State could match any offer. Young guys — Gabe Pruitt and Mike Taylor — also got waived last week.

I’d rather have a veteran with a ring like Jason Williams than either one of these options. I still believe that CJ Watson is the best case scenario and as we learned earlier this week, that is still an option. Jason Williams wouldn’t be a terrible pick-up, especially after the Magic and Brevin Knight decided that they are going in different directions. I think Williams can still get the job done off of the bench . Even with all the discussion, the Magic are still in no rush to sign a PG yet. They have a long time to decide and should gain leverage as training camp draws closer. Camp opens September 29.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger.Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily. Check out his ACC Football preview here.)