Jalen Williams hesitated for the first time all night.
One of the NBA’s most instinctual players sat in silence for a moment, pondering what to say after OKC’s 132-111 home win over Dallas on Friday.
The Thunder forward had just been asked about the lingering shooting effects of his injury, a torn ligament in his right wrist that sidelined him for the first 19 games of the season, and he looked over to a Thunder media relations members in the corner of the interview room.
“I gotta see how much I can say without getting too much into my thing,” Williams told him before pausing for another few seconds.
Williams has shown that hesitance on a few occasions when discussing his wrist. The white tape that could be seen mummifying it after Friday’s game isn’t the only way he has kept it under wraps, but he finally provided some insight.
“I don’t have the same range of motion that I did before,” Williams explained. “A lot of it is like trying to get those reps of what my range of motion is and what I need to do mechanically to fix it. After I had my surgery, it wasn’t like I had this 2-3 week period where I can get shots and work on it. It was like, let’s make sure you can fall and then you just figure it out while you’re playing.
“I’m not missing 30 or 40 games just so I can get reps up. You guys are seeing some of the first times that I’ve done certain things with my hand. That’s the challenge and the process of it.”
Jalen Williams’ stats since return from wrist surgery
That challenge has understandably led to some shaky shooting splits through Williams’ first four outings of the season.
The All-NBA forward is averaging 16 points on career lows of 42.1% shooting from the field and 25% shooting from deep entering OKC’s road game against Utah at 7 p.m. Sunday, and yet he’s still one its most impactful players. He ranks third on the team in net rating (18.5) and is setting the tone with his intensity on both ends of the floor.
“It’s literally the least of my worries,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said of Williams’ shooting struggles. “He’s such a great player. He’s going to come around. It’s going to take a little time from a rhythm standpoint, and that’s fine. He can take as much time as he needs. The thing that’s great about him is he just competes every night, and he plays the right way every night.
“Even if he’s not in full form yet with his shot or his offense or anything like that, he’s going to bring those two things. And he’s incredibly impactful because of that.”
Williams has attacked his shooting struggles head-on.
The 24-year-old star has been even more aggressive when it comes to getting downhill. And the sound of shoulder colliding with sternum can often be heard when he clears defenders out of the way on drives.
That’s often followed by the sound of an official’s whistle, signaling a drawn foul for Williams. But even if that doesn’t come, the sweet sound of string music often does, whether it’s via a layup by Williams or a 3-pointer by one of OKC’s many kickout shooters.
Williams averaged 13.4 drives per game last season, which ranked 17th in the NBA. They resulted in an average of 8.5 points and 1.4 assists.
Although it’s a much smaller sample size, Williams ranks 10th in the league in drives per game this season (14.8). They’ve resulted in an average of 9.5 points and 1.8 assists.
“A lot of it is trying to get my rhythm back,” Williams said of his increase in drives. “Getting to the free-throw line. Getting a couple of easy layups. I’m just trying to get the mentality down of just driving and playing with force. When I haven’t played in so long, that’s usually the hardest part to get back. So the more I can attack that, everything else will fall into place.”
Jalen Williams’ defense remains stellar
Williams’ wrist injury hasn’t presented a challenge for him on defense.
Williams has held opponents to 25-for-63 shooting from the field (39.7%) and 2-for-7 shooting from deep (28.6%) this season. And he has guarded all five positions, ranging from 5-foot-11 guard Ryan Nembhard to 6-6 wing Jimmy Butler to 7-1 center Mark Williams.
Williams is ineligible for any major NBA awards this season because he won’t reach the minimum of 65 regular-season games played, but he’s on par with the league’s best defenders. His defensive rating of 101.9 is better than that of Defensive Player of the Year candidates such as Chet Holmgren (102.5), Victor Wembanyama (105.5) and Evan Mobley (110.6).
Williams has been so dominant defensively that he’s giving himself extra challenges. He’s in an ongoing competition with Cason Wallace, who was recently named the Western Conference’s Defensive Player of the Month, to see who can get the most steals this season.
It’s surely a losing battle for Williams, who has played 18 fewer games than Wallace. He trails 47-4 in that competition entering Sunday’s contest. But if it pushes both himself and Wallace to elevate their play, that’s a win in his eyes.
“Well, (Wallace) is 20 games ahead of me right now, so he’s probably got that wrapped up for the season,” Williams said with a laugh. “He’s such a good defender. I was trying to get him to reach more in his rookie year, and then last year he started trying it more and more and was getting a lot more steals. I was just seeing different ways he can steal the ball that I probably couldn’t and vice versa, so we just kind of challenged each other with it.
“It’s just a friendly competition, but it’s just more like trying to challenge ourselves to be great in that regard every day and not get bored playing defense.”
OKC has gone 22-1 to start the season. And Williams has had a hand in its dominance, all while being limited with his own.
When asked by one reporter after Friday’s game if the full range of motion in his right wrist is expected to return at some point, he simply shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
Williams says the recovery process will be an “ongoing thing,” as he deals with muscle atrophy. It’s the wasting of muscle mass that’s caused by disuse, which occurred when Williams’ wrist spent the majority of this past summer in a cast following surgery in July.
“It’s not like a hindrance, per se,” Williams said. “It’s just more like over time it’ll get there. … Getting my form strong and getting my grip strength back, a lot of that stuff over time will get back. I was in a cast every single day when I wasn’t playing. Just trying to get all of my muscles back in my hand is going to be the strength point in that.
“And that’s where the pain in shooting comes from because everything is trying to compensate for the fact that I haven’t flicked my wrist as much as I have going forward. That goes back to last December when I had my hand sprain, so that’s what I’m dealing with.
And yet Williams didn’t hesitate to add one more thing as he pounded his left fist into the palm of his recovering hand.
“But it’s nothing too crazy,” Williams said.
Justin Martinez covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Justin? He can be reached at jmartinez@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @Justintohoops. Sign up for the Thunder Sports Minute newsletter to access more NBA coverage. Support Justin’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
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