<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Sloan may give 2nd-year guard 40 minutes per game at point With injured Derek Fisher back at the team hotel trying to rest as comfortably as he could considering the circumstances, and the start of the 2006-07 NBA season barely more than two weeks away, Jerry Sloan took time before Monday night's 90-85 preseason loss to the Detroit Pistons to ponder possibilities for getting by without the veteran guard. As he did, and when second-season point Deron Williams' name popped up, the Jazz coach dropped this nugget: "Deron's probably going to play 40 minutes," Sloan said. "So you're only looking at eight minutes in the ballgame at that position. So, can we tread water for him and stay in the ballgame with the other people that are out there? That's the question mark." Sloan does not suggest a guarantee of 40 minutes a game from November through April is etched in stone for Williams, the No. 3 overall selection in the 2005 NBA Draft. The response, however, does imply that Williams should continue to prepare for plenty of playing time. And he's all for that. "Forty minutes, 45 ? it doesn't matter to me," the University of Illinois product said. "I'll be out there as long as possible. And I definitely can handle it. I'm in the best shape of my life. "That was my goal this summer ? to not give him a reason not to play me 40 minutes," Williams said. "I worked on every part of my game. And I'm ready for it. I wanted him to hand me the starting job with no doubts in his mind, and I think I did that." Sloan said nothing to dispel the notion.</div> <div align="center">Source</div>
