Deron Williams: Late season spurt "showed a little bit of what I can do"

In his end-of-season interviews, Ben Couch spoke with Deron Williams who admitted the pain of losing to Chicago but also showed an extraordinary degree of optimism about next season ... particularly about his own performance.

Says Williams, "Myself, personally, just because of injuries – once I got healthy, people saw a little bit of what I can do. So I look forward to building on that. As a team, I still feel like we can play a lot better. If we can find a way to be consistent, that would put us up there with anybody."

D-Will averaged 22 and 8 after the All-Star break, shooting 42 percent from three and setting an NBA record for three-pointers in a half. So any improvement on that would give the Nets a big advantage.

Williams also admitted that the team, with 11 new players were "kind of going in blind" (although it should be noted the Nets started 11-4.)

"We were kind of going in blind this year, from the arena to how we were going to play as a group," Williams says. "There's still a few things we need to figure out, but it was a step in the right direction."

Billy King thinks chemistry will be a big factor next season as well.

"That should help us next year in training camp," says King. "Deron will think all off-season on ways he can score with Brook or Joe or Gerald. Last summer, we didn't know who we were going to have. When we had this conversation (then), I didn't know who was going to be on the roster. Now I know who's coming back. It's not that I've got to add a lot of pieces. This will be the first off-season where really we can build on our core."

Meanwhile, Amy Williams posted a picture of she and Deron vacationing in Anguilla. Svelte.

• Deron Williams Guides Nets' 1st Step in Brooklyn - Ben Couch - Brooklyn Nets
• Three reasons to be optimistic about Nets - Mike Mazzeo - ESPN New York