Utah's Williams, Fisher may have a point

FRESNO, Calif. — They arrived at training camp with one pressing question begging for an answer: Just how will newly acquired veteran Derek Fisher and returning point-guard starter Deron Williams be used in the backcourt?

One week later, the Jazz are no closer to knowing than they were before fall's first ball had bounced.

Whether the issue festers remains to be seen.

This much, however, seems clear: Both fancy themselves as points, but — at least publicly — one of the two is much more adamant about the matter than the other.

"I'm a point guard," Williams said Monday morning, before the Jazz departed for Fresno and tonight's preseason opener against the Los Angeles Lakers.

His stance is not totally hard-line — "Whatever he (coach Jerry Sloan) wants to do with me, that's what he does with me; whether he puts me at the 1 or 2, I'm going to go out there and play" — but how Williams feels is quite obvious.

"I know I'm a point guard," he said.

"I'm a playmaker," added Williams, the No. 3 overall selection in the 2005 NBA Draft. "You know, I like the ball in my hands. I think I'm good at pushing the tempo, I understand the game, I know where to get the ball. So, I think I'm better-suited for a 1. And I've always been a point guard, my whole life. I never played the 2."

Williams was responding to a suggestion made Sunday by Sloan that moving him to shooting guard to play alongside Fisher at the point is one of many different options the Jazz are contemplating.

Reality, though, is that Sloan still doesn't know how he'll use the 10-year veteran Fisher.

"I don't," the Jazz coach said, "because we haven't seen him play that much. We haven't seen him play in games.

"We'll just have to wait and see how things work out before you really make up your mind you're gonna play him 'here' or 'here."'

Options are plentiful.

The two may wind up starting together, with Fisher playing the 2.

Williams could start at the point, with Fisher backing him up and Utah using any of numerous others — rookie Ronnie Brewer, impressive-looking sophomore C.J. Miles, veteran Gordan Giricek, who had been starting before an Achilles tendon injury cut his 2005-06 season short; maybe even versatile Andrei Kirilenko or Matt Harpring — at shooting guard.

Or dare Sloan start Fisher over Williams — someone "we feel we could trust for the next 10 or 12 years," according to a comment basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor made after last season ended — and potentially create a situation that could quickly turn ugly?