Williams To Miss Time With Foot Injury

The Nets lost their backup point guard yesterday for the duration of training camp, but they inched closer to adding a pretty good backup shooting guard.

Marcus Williams, the talented second-year point who had a rocky rookie season, fractured the fifth metatarsal of his right foot yesterday and will miss six weeks, team president Rod Thorn announced.

And though it may not exactly help them relieve Jason Kidd's workload, the Nets became one of the two finalists for the services of Allan Houston, who will choose between the Nets and Knicks early next week, judging by some strong implications from his agent.

Williams, who will undergo surgery Monday morning, is a remarkably quick healer, but the Nets are ruling him out for all of training camp.

"It'll be right around six weeks," Thorn said. "He has no idea how it happened -- his foot just got sore. So Timmy (Walsh, the trainer) had an MRI done, and we found out he's got a crack."
The loss of the UConn product is a significant setback from this perspective: The Nets had hoped he would have a strong camp and become a reliable leader of the second unit, so that they could trim back minutes for the 34-year-old Kidd.

"No doubt," Thorn agreed. "And Marcus was having a terrific summer. He was ready to go. So it's a setback. But it's better to happen now."

There are two other point guards in camp -- Eddie Gill and Mateen Cleaves -- but both are long shots to make the team.

"There's not much to do until we find out what's available, but we'll take a close look at those two other guys," Thorn said. "It's not like they're totally raw. We've received a lot of calls from agents today, but we don't have anything imminent. Right now there's no one else we're particularly interested in."

Since Williams will be unable to start the regular season, the Nets probably will have to go with Vince Carter as Kidd's primary backup. That potential shift could actually make the 36-year-old Houston a valuable commodity, as he could be slotted in as the designated shooter in a Carter-led offense.

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source : nj.com