Deron Williams, blogging from Turkey

Can't remember him ever to be that communicative from Utah or New Jersey. But now that he's in Istanbul, Deron Williams has tapped into his inner Hemingway:

I made the choice early and just went all in.

My wife kind of sold me on it rather than me selling her on it. She loves to travel and she wants to go to as many places as we can. She thought it would be a great situation; a great thing for us to do. I thought this was a good situation because I had always wanted to go to Istanbul. I played with Mehmet Okur for five and a half years and he’s always told me how great the city is. I also know guys on Team USA who came over and a lot of them loved the city. I got mostly positive reviews before I came over.

This is my first year playing international ball, so I'm still just trying to figure everything out with regard to my role. Obviously I've played in the Olympics with the same style of play, but that was still different because all of my teammates were American. They've actually been playing me at the two guard a lot here. Whatever I can do to help the team, I'm willing. I don't have any personal goals or stats I'm looking for over here; I just want to stay in shape, play basketball and have fun. As a team, we just want to win as many games as possible, win the Turkish League and now the Euro Challenge. I don't know how many of those games I'll have a chance to be a part of, but for every game I am here for, that's my goal.

I know that this situation is different for me than it is for everyone else here. When I leave to go back to the NBA, they're all still going to be here. So I'm not trying to come in here and prove anything. It's more about just trying to be part of a team over here, win some games and make my teammates better.

The locker room atmosphere has the same feel as the NBA. All of the guys get along and joke with each other. Pretty much every guy on the team speaks English. There are only one or two guys who don't speak great English, but even they know enough to get by. I'd say English is the "official" language on the team actually. Our coach Ergin Ataman speaks English most of the time, except for when he's yelling at one of the Turkish players. Then he tends to go Turkish mode. I'm not really sure what he's saying, but if he's not yelling at me I guess it doesn't matter.

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/32698/deron-williams-blogging-from-turkey

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