The Oklahoma City Thunder are too good to be novelty-cute anymore. Despite winning 53 games last season on their way to the best regular season record in the West, they seemed fundamentally harmless–too small, too green to threaten the league’s best teams. After adding Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein, they’re no longer a feel-good story: they’re a powerhouse and they’re ready to beat your favorite team.
As last year’s MVP runner-up, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA’s most consistently excellent player. Although Gilgeous-Alexander doesn’t embark on the euphoric highs of Nikola Jokic or Joel Embiid, his cruising speed is unmatched. His 50 30+ point games last year were the most in the league; the Bucks and Raptors were the only teams he failed to hang a 30 piece on. Even in the playoffs, Gilgeous-Alexander was unbothered, posting nearly identical stats as he did during the regular season.
But while Gilgeous-Alexander’s steadiness guarantees that the Thunder will be a very good team, it doesn’t singlehandedly ensure that they’ll be a great one. In the second round of the playoffs, Gilgeous-Alexander was the clear-cut best player in the series, but the Thunder still lost in six games to the Mavericks, because every non-Gilgeous-Alexander player faltered under the pressure.
In this sense, the Thunder’s immediate and long-term ceiling will be determined by Jalen Williams, their burgeoning second star. In his sophomore season, Williams emerged as an elite young player, averaging nearly 20 points per game on nearly unequaled efficiency. He shot a higher percentage at the rim than Zion Williamson, in the mid-range than DeMar DeRozan, and from three than Steph Curry. Plus, he scored more points per possession as a pick-and-roll ball-handler than Trae Young and fared better in transition than Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Moreover, Williams’ broad yet specific skills enable the Thunder’s unique, amoebic scheme—he can fill any role on offense and guard any position on defense. Within the Thunder’s battalion of specialists, he’s the rare generalist, equally comfortable with or without the ball.
But against Dallas, Williams revealed a damaging emptiness at the core of his all-around excellence, holding him to 17 points per game on 50.8 percent True Shooting. At the most basic level, the Mavericks stole the series from a better Thunder team because Dallas shot better than Oklahoma City. But beyond shooting variance, the Mavs exploited Williams’ discomfort navigating tight spaces. During the regular season, OKC’s offense thrived by maintaining immaculate spacing, but the Mavs refused to let themselves get stretched out, compacting the floor and successfully gambling that the Thunder didn’t have enough shooting to punish them.
Without his usual boulevards of space, Williams looked ordinary. Whereas Gilgeous-Alexander could winkle his way through even the smallest creases, Williams doesn’t dribble with the same liquid, shimmering quality. Gilgeous-Alexander paints like he can access the unimaginable colors that only shrimp can see; Williams must make do with plain old ROY G BIV.
Boxed in by Dallas’s defense, Williams struggled to make headway as a ball-handler. On the rare occasions that Williams shed his initial defender, other Mavs were ready and waiting for him at the nail and at the rim. For the series, he shot just 43 percent on two-pointers, a severe fall-off from his 57.6 percent mark in the regular season. Similarly, Dallas preyed on Williams’ sheepish three-point shooting (part of the reason that Williams is such an accurate three-point shooter is that he shuns high-difficulty attempts).
If OKC’s offseason is any indication, though, the Thunder aren’t sweating Williams’ playoff underperformance. Despite having the right mix of cap space, draft picks and young players to trade for just about any player, the Thunder prioritized reinforcement over reimagination. While Caruso and Hartenstein are top-shelf defenders and ego-less offensive players, they’re a clear rung below the likes of Paul George, Mikal Bridges or Lauri Markkanen. By having a fairly quiet offseason, the Thunder signaled their faith in Williams and the roster at large.
And there’s plenty of reason to have faith. In his minutes without Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams looked an awful lot like, well, Gilgeous-Alexander. Flying solo, Williams dramatically ramped up his scoring (34.7 points per 100 possessions without Gilgeous-Alexander, compared to 25.9 with him) and playmaking (8.4 assists per 100 possessions, up from 6.1) without sacrificing any efficiency. This is the ultimate promise of Williams—he can be both a co-star and an actual star.
Entering next season, the Thunder are the top team in the West, if not the entire NBA. They have the league’s: best guard in Gilgeous-Alexander; best battery of role players between Hartenstein, Caruso and Lu Dort; most exciting humanoid center with Chet Holmgren; and most innovative young coach in Mark Daigneault. They have what a pro wants, what a pro needs. No team has had this much promise since the last time the Thunder had this much promise. They’re barking at the gate, ready to be an era-defining dynasty, as soon as Williams is ready to help them become one.
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