Utah general manager Kevin O'Connor revealed to Donnie Walsh this week that Deron Williams could have ended up with the Knicks had they not completed their trade for Carmelo Anthony.

O'Connor targeted the assets of both the Nets and Knicks under the assumption that one of the two teams would lose out on Anthony and be interested in a Plan B.

O'Connor revealed that several other teams contacted the Jazz about trading for Williams, but neither the Knicks or Nets inquired.

“(O’Connor) called me just to say sorry about (not getting) Melo,” Billy King said by phone on Wednesday. “We talked about that, and he made another proposal not including Deron. I countered with something including Deron. He said, let me think about it, then he countered another way, then said, ‘let me talk to the owner and let’s talk in the morning.’ He calls in the morning and says, ‘we’ve got a deal.’”

O'Connor was asked how he formulated his plan.

“I thought Denver did their shopping online, so to speak. When they investigated everything that they investigated, I was following suit. And I thought the three things that we needed were to get a good young player – a good, big, young player if we could. To get a point guard that could keep us competitive, which I think we did obviously. Tonight was an exception.

“And then hopefully to get some draft picks. We fulfilled all of those things going forward. When we looked around the league at quote-unquote ‘destination points,’ I didn’t see anything that was a better deal than this. I think the assets that both the Nets and Knicks had were things that intrigued us (one source close to the situation says the Jazz likely would have insisted on Knicks rookie guard Landry Fields being part of the deal).”