Even during the season, Unrivaled is full of surprises. The league announced its first in-season trade on February 9. A four-team trade sent Azurá Stevens to the Hive, Saniya Rivers to the Vinyl, and Courtney Williams to the Breeze, and left Rose one player short—a hole some fans believe will be filled by Angel Reese, who starred for the team last season but decided to sit out this year.
Getting Courtney Williams fills an immediate need for a Breeze team that has been asking a lot of Paige Bueckers since Aari McDonald’s injury six minutes into the team’s first game.
Losing McDonald put a lot of pressure on Bueckers as the team’s only true ballhandler and playmaker and put Kate Martin in an uncomfortable position by forcing her to take on some point guard responsibilities. Adding Williams should ease the load Bueckers has to carry and will allow Martin to go back to doing what she does best: spacing the floor, playing good defense, and making hustle plays.
Breeze needs an experienced point guard
Between Bueckers, Rickea Jackson, Dominique Malonga, and Cameron Brink, Breeze’s roster features a ton of young star power. Nevertheless, the team only has a 5-5 record. They most recently lost to the Hive—a team that only had two wins going into the game—despite having a sizeable lead at the half.
Bueckers has been pretty consistent amid her team’s ups and downs. She has only scored below 20 points twice and hasn’t recorded a game with fewer than four assists yet. As the team’s biggest star, Bueckers has to do a lot of the heavy lifting. She leads the Breeze in minutes, points, field goal attempts, and assists per game.
Adding Williams to the mix won’t alleviate all of the pressure on Bueckers, but it will lighten the playmaking and minutes load she has had to deal with. Having a proven veteran point guard should make Noelle Quinn more comfortable with taking Bueckers out of the game every once in a while.
Most importantly, Williams can take on a big chunk of the playmaking responsibilities and allow Bueckers to play off the ball more. Williams averaged 4 assists over ten games with the Vinyl. She only trails Bueckers, Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum, and Marina Mabrey in assists per game across the entire league.
Williams is also one of the best mid-range scorers in the game and should be great in the pick-and-roll with Malonga and Brink as a facilitator and scoring threat.
Moreover, Williams brings a ball security that the team hasn’t had with McDonald sidelined. Breeze struggles with turnovers, averaging the second-most per game. Despite handling the ball a lot for Vinyl, Williams only averaged 1.4 turnovers per game—fewer than any Breeze player except Kate Martin.