NEW YORK -- What's not to like about Deron Williams' game that now has plenty of give to it thanks to the textbook orchestra leader being sufficiently schooled his rookie season by Jerry Sloan?

Still, the paramount parcel of Williams' inventory -- and we're feasting our eyes on a lot of fertile figures; the second-year guard averages almost 20 points, 10 assists and two steals conducting the 12-3 Jazz -- may very well be his remarkable maturity while baby-sitting the ball.

For those yet to enjoy the view, Williams is a sight for droopy eye lids.

Last season, Chris Paul was the NBA's rapidly rising pinnacle point behind Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Chauncey Billups and, of course, Stephon Marbury.

"Watch Williams when he runs the break and nothing unfolds," recommends a Utah urchin, an expert on ranking passers, mountain, and shining sea or otherwise. "He'll hold up, dribble out to the 3-point line and start a play.

"In other words, no turnovers, no ill-advised pass, no forced shot, old testament . . . like John Stockton, Walt Frazier and Magic Johnson."

To think, unlike Stockton, Williams didn't even need to be tutored for a season by Rickey Green.

So we'll credit Sloan.

That reminds me and mine, while Isiah Thomas gerbils about getting his players "amped up" at the outset of games, Sloan speaks with an unforked tongue: "Young guys should be able to play their guts out at the beginning. You dream of playing in the NBA. Now you get your chance, you should be alive out there."

One of the Celtics' biggest problems, it says here, is their surplus of players whose growth plates are wide open.

A coach and his staff can only comfort so many youngbloods and bring them along so fast, simultaneously. Especially when they're queued at the two most influential positions, the pivot and the point.

Understandably, Boston's Tee-Off Party (24-point loss to the Knicks) was interrupted at the end by Boston's Teed-Off Party.

On the other hand, no matter how long, loud and a lot fans belch, "Fire Doc!" Glenn Anton Rivers is not at fault for the team's dawdling or Friday's debacle.

James Dolan held The Prophet accountable for the Knicks' never-imitated, often-triplicated roster by making him coach his "last" roundup.

Glen Taylor insisted Timberwolf VP Kevin McHale do likewise two seasons ago, albeit, briefly, after Flip Saunders was excised.

When Doc inevitably is dumped into the Charles River, it seems only fair Celtics' ownership command Danny Ainge to take ultimate responsibility for his configuration.

Not that the Futile Lord isn't fully cognizant his construction job is fabulously faulty.

How offensively deficient are the Celtics in the low block?

Let's put it this way, Ben Wallace and Tyson Chandler would be an improvement over Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins.

No wonder, an enlightened source reveals to Hoop du Jour, Ainge has offered anybody and everybody for Pau Gasol and anyone else the Grizzlies want to discard to make a deal happen.

The 211-cm Spaniard whose country captured the World Championship last summer despite his absence in the final against Greece (fractured ankle during semi that required surgery), is running sprints by himself, a good sign he may be closing in on activation within the next few weeks.

Obviously, 3-10 Memphis is suffering dreadfully without Gasol's scoring, rebounding and a presence that demands undivided defensive attention from two or three opponents.

In the final year of his contract and guaranteed not to be rehired -- if for no other reason, the "incoming" owners can't afford him -- Mike Fratello isn't quite as good a coach without Gasol; funny how that works.

Yet, the thrice one round-and-done playoff team isn't a big draw in Memphis.

Who knows, maybe the franchise has no other choice but to trade him for a squadron of undeveloped, minimum-wage hustlers, the business blueprint (unearthed last week by The Commercial Appeal) of the underfunded group headed by Brian Davis and Christian Laettner.

While that may, indeed be something that could go down once Michael Heisley's 70 percent is sold, nothing is about to happen at this time.