During the 2011 NBA lockout, the season was postponed for a few months and some of the league’s biggest stars at the time decided to try their luck in European basketball. The season didn’t start until December 25 because of a major disagreement in which the owners protested against the players receiving 57 percent of the league’s revenues, which they claimed was far too much. The issue was finally settled on a 50-50 split.
In the meantime, players like Tony Parker and Deron Williams, who were among the league’s best point guards at the time, decided to play in Europe while waiting for the lockout to end. Parker returned to France, playing for Asvel, while Williams went to Turkey. He signed with Besiktas, then coached by Ergin Ataman, a man who today owns three EuroLeague titles. The middleman in that deal was none other than Nikola Jokic’s agent Misko Raznatovic.
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“I really didn’t follow the NBA at all,” Raznatovic said on the 6.75range podcast. “They play at 3 a.m., I had no players there, I don’t like that basketball played at 3 a.m. Ergin Ataman called me, he said, ‘We have money, Besiktas needs a point guard now while the lockout is on.’ And since I was working with Excel, they said Jason Kidd, and I immediately said of course, let’s go for it. But Jason Kidd was too old and not interested, but then they told me they had Deron Williams.”
“I have to admit I had never heard of Deron Williams, and in my head I’m thinking, I’m asking for a Mercedes and you’re giving me a Skoda. I hung up the phone a bit disappointed, and then I went on the Eurobasket website to see who Deron Williams was. I saw the man was averaging 24 points in New Jersey, a three-time All-Star. I called Ataman back and said, ‘Jason Kidd doesn’t want it, but Deron Williams does.’ But even he didn’t react much, which told me he also wasn’t fully aware of his qualities. The same thing happened to him as to me. Ten minutes later he called me back and said, ‘Let’s do the deal,’ and Deron Williams signed with Besiktas.”
It’s almost unbelievable that Misko had never heard of Deron
Raznatovic, now regarded as the most powerful European agent, who famously discovered Jokic by reading the newspaper and checking his stats, signed him without ever seeing him play in person. Today, his agency BeoBasket has big NBA names like Ivica Zubac, Nikola Jovic and Goga Bitadze, among others, as the list keeps growing year after year.
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From that perspective, it’s almost unbelievable that he had never heard of Deron until that moment. Just the season before, Williams averaged 18.7 points and 10.5 assists on 46.9 percent shooting, and was considered one of the best point guards in the league. In fact, back in 2008, he was a member of the Redeem Team alongside Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, where he won his first Olympic gold medal. Raznatovic later admitted that Williams’s arrival had a phenomenal impact on Besiktas that season, even though they were far from favourites at the time.
“In the end, during those two months, I became friends with him. The lockout ended, he went back to the NBA, and riding that momentum Besiktas signed Carlos Arroyo and achieved unprecedented success that year. It was truly a revolutionary move. To be honest, at that time I knew the players in the Polish league much better than those in the NBA,” Raznatovic concluded.
Besiktas went on to achieve the greatest success in club history
Williams eventually played only 12 games for the Turkish club, seven in the Turkish SuperLeague and five in the FIBA EuroChallenge Cup, the third-tier European competition. He was amazing in both competitions, averaging over 20 points per game.
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Although he was not there at the end of the season, the team went on to achieve the greatest success in club history by winning three competitions. Both the domestic league and the Cup in Turkey, along with the FIBA EuroChallenge Cup. Before that, they had only one trophy in their 44-year history. As Raznatovic himself said, D-Will’ arrival immediately lifted the entire club and laid a foundation for a great season. The rest is history.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 1, 2025, where it first appeared in the International section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.