SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- To all but the hard-core, satellite dish-owning basketball junkies and the folks who call the Kings their home team, Jason Williams is a creation of ESPN's "SportsCenter," a nightly highlight clip.

Here's Jason throwing a behind-the-back pass. Here's Jason taking the ball completely around his body before laying it in. Here's Jason, ordained the Pete Maravich for the new millennium for two reasons: He's flashy and he's white.

He's also a rookie point guard for perhaps the most obscure team in the NBA, one that wasn't going to appear on national television this season until TNT changed its schedule. Now it will, twice, at least on cable. Now, Williams' game will be on display for everyone to see.

Now, everyone can see what Kings assistant coach Byron Scott sees when he says, "Some of the things he does are unbelievable." Yes, this is the same Byron Scott who once played with Magic Johnson.

Now, everyone can see what Kings head coach Rick Adelman sees when he says, "I've only seen three guys with the vision he has: [Jason] Kidd, Magic, and [John] Stockton." By the way, Adelman played with Maravich on the 1974-75 New Orleans Jazz.

"When he first got here, I noticed he has a tattoo on his chest of an eye," Scott says. "I said, 'What does that stand for?' He said, 'I see everything.' And, basically, he does."

Scott, however, hates the Maravich comparison because he considers it purely racial -- which is why he also hates some of the nicknames hung on Williams such as White Chocolate and White Shadow. He also dismisses comparisons to Magic because Magic was 6-foot-9, 8 inches taller than Williams, and led the Lakers to the NBA title as a rookie the year after leading Michigan State to a national title.

"But if you want to compare the way they make the simple look spectacular, yeah, there is a comparison," Scott says.

If you want to compare Williams to someone, however, the best person may be football's Randy Moss.

Both attended the same junior high in Belle, W. Va., where Williams was Moss' quarterback for a season.

Both also were considered draft-day risks due to checkered pasts, Moss (drafted 21st overall by the Vikings) because of brushes with the law, Williams (drafted seventh by the Kings) because he was kicked off the University of Florida team his senior year after twice testing positive for marijuana.

Moss was an overwhelming choice as the NFL's rookie of the year. Williams, though, faces stiff competition from Toronto's Vince Carter and Boston's Paul Pierce.

That's because for all the hype Williams has received, he's run into the rookie wall.

The four games before Wednesday's against the Knicks, he shot just 22 percent (10-for-45) from the floor. Overall, he was averaging 13 points, 5.5 assists, and 2.7 turnovers, and shooting 38.2 percent.

Teams have scouted him, they know what he can do.

"He'll have to adjust," Scott says.

Williams says otherwise. "I just play my game," he says. "I don't change my game for nobody. I just try to go out and have fun."

"Have fun." It's a phrase Williams uses often. Seemingly unaffected by all the attention he's received, almost casual, he spoke to a swarm of New York-area reporters Wednesday wearing a baseball cap tilted sideways on his head and carrying a broomstick for some unknown reason.

At 23 he's also too young to have seen Maravich play, yet it doesn't seem right when he says he "grew up watching Jason Kidd and Stephon Marbury."

Those are now his contemporaries, though. Those are the players with whom he's fighting for highlight time and, perhaps some day, will fight for All-Star spots and the NBA title.

Sacramento in the NBA Finals. That's rather heady stuff for a franchise that's competed in one playoff round the past 12 seasons. But that's what the presence of Williams, as well as newly acquired veterans Chris Webber and Vlade Divac, have done.

Yet, even though Webber began Wednesday leading the league in rebounding (13.3 per game) and 12th in scoring (20.0), Williams is getting most of the pub because of his highlight-reel game.

It's a game that comes from everywhere, he says, from plays he's seen on television, from the few film clips he's seen of Maravich.

"Even if you [reporters] played ball, I would watch you and if you did a move I liked, I would try to do it," he says.

Perhaps that is why he also says, "I might kick one up in the third row one time."

That's a play you don't see on "SportsCenter," though.

You see him make moves so original, Adelman wonders if the officials are sure they're legal. You see him leave Gary "The Glove" Payton discarded on the court like a child's lost mitten with a move Scott says he's never seen before.

"Some of the things he does, I just sit on the bench and smile," Scott says.

Him and the highlight editors.