A summer filled with celebration nears its end. Only a little over a month exists until the Oklahoma City Thunder start the 2025-26 regular season. The NBA champion has enjoyed its accomplishments, but soon a new marathon will start with them at the top.

Bringing back mostly the same roster, the Thunder are the consensus title favorite. They’re viewed as a team that could pull off the rare feat of being a back-to-back NBA champion. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren all signed contract extensions this offseason to keep their title window wide open.

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To prepare for the 2025-26 regular season, Thunder Wire will lay out three goals for all 17 players on the roster. OKC has 15 standard players and two two-way players. Let’s look at Williams and what he could accomplish this upcoming year:

Remain an All-NBA player

The Thunder saw Williams enjoy a breakout season last year. Rule of thumb suggests the third season is when a player usually makes their largest leap. In this case, that meant being a first-time All-Star and All-NBA member. Nobody flipped their narrative quite as dramatically as the 24-year-old. All season long, you heard the same questions about whether he could be a legitimate second-best player on a title contender. He answered it with a resounding yes.

Now it’s about maintaining the status quo. This season could determine whether Williams will be an All-NBA player just a couple of times or join Gilgeous-Alexander as a perennial guest. Considering nobody blinked when he drew Gen Z Scottie Pippen comparisons, most expect the latter. Especially if the Thunder remain a title contender for the foreseeable future. An efficient 20-plus point scorer who can rebound and facilitate is about as textbook as it gets.

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Draw more free-throw attempts

Conventional wisdom says the best scorers in the NBA can get to the free-throw line. It’s the most efficient way to bump your average up by a few points. Driving to the basket and drawing contact is a misunderstood art that graduates players from one tier to the next. Williams saw the benefits of that last season. He averaged a career-best 4.3 free-throw attempts. That number jumped to 5.6 attempts in the playoffs.

The drive-heavy scorer figured out how to get to the free-throw line. Williams attacked traffic and bullied his way to the rim. He’d either have a dynamic finish or go to the charity stripe. While he enjoyed his best year yet, there is still plenty of room to grow. If he has the appetite for it, he could eat up more possessions as OKC’s second-best scorer. That should naturally lead to more free throws, which should help his points-per-game average flirt with 25.

Be in DPOY conversation

What made Williams one of the 15 best players last season wasn’t just what he did on offense. His defense also dramatically improved. To the point he was named to the All-Defense Second Team. The next step should be getting into the Defensive Player of the Year conversation. He might not get the flashy steals and blocks, but anybody who watched OKC last season can vouch for how important he was to their league-best defense. They don’t win an NBA championship without his contributions there.

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Williams played the middle linebacker role. He could defend all five positions. He was quick enough to be glued to perimeter scorers and strong enough to bang inside the paint and be arguably the best non-traditional rim protector in the league. When the center room was extinct, he stepped up as the starting five. His pterodactyl wingspan disrupted several possessions. He could be the rare forward to win Defensive Player of the Year. But first, he must enter the conversation. That should happen this season.

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: OKC Thunder 3 goals: Jalen Williams could be perennial All-NBA member