MONS, Belgium — As N.B.A. players and owners struggled to prevent a labor dispute from disrupting the regular season, one star player did something novel: he played in a basketball game that mattered.

Deron Williams, the Nets’ point guard, was here Tuesday night with his teammates on Besiktas Milangaz, a professional team from Istanbul playing a game in the Eurocup, a second-tier intercontinental competition.

Perhaps Williams wished he had been back at the negotiating table. In a 74-63 loss to host Dexia Mons-Hainaut, he finished with 7 points, 7 assists and 6 turnovers. He shot 3 of 13 from the floor. The loss eliminated Besiktas from the tournament.

“Didn’t give my team much of a chance,” he said.

In July, Williams was the first N.B.A. star to announce that he would look for competition abroad, in Turkey, if the lockout was not settled. A few other players followed, and reports emerged this week that Kobe Bryant was nearing a deal with a team in Italy. With labor reconciliation nowhere on the N.B.A. horizon, these foreign sojourns might last awhile.