Jan. 10, 2026, 3:45 p.m. CT
As the Oklahoma City Thunder continue to mow down the competition in the regular season, how they do in the playoffs is an entirely different question — one that revolves around Jalen Williams and his wrist.
As most know, Williams solidified his spot in OKC’s mythos when he played through their playoff run to an NBA championship with torn wrist ligaments. The painful process included daily pain-numbing shots and relearning how to shoot the ball on the fly.
Of course, the risk was worth it. Williams helped the Thunder win an NBA championship. He has a ring. He’ll forever be an OKC hero for the rest of his life. But the bill came due in the offseason. He had surgery to repair his wrist. He had another one to remove a screw that irritated him.
Williams’ two surgeries delayed his 2025-26 regular-season debut. He’s only played in 20 of OKC’s 39 games. And even since his return, he hasn’t been the same All-NBA player from last year. His stats are down across the board. He’s only at 17.6 points on 46.2% shooting, 5.8 assists and 5.2 rebounds.
The jumper has been hit or miss — more often the former. Williams broke out last season as an efficient 20-point scorer because his pull-up jumper became so reliable. He helped Shai Gilgeous-Alexander out as OKC’s second-best scorer.
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The Thunder will need Williams to play at the level or close enough if they want to go back-to-back. Williams chronicled his ongoing wrist recovery. While he’s fully healthy, he must adjust to a new normal where the body part feels like frozen Laffy Taffy some days and normal other days.
“It sucks. It’s a very annoying process. Nobody is going to be more frustrated than me when shots are short. It’s one of those things I gotta learn throughout the game,” Williams said. “It’s not like I’m on a bad team where I can jack 40 shots and figure it out that way.”
Perhaps we all underestimated Williams’ recovery process. Anytime ligament damage is involved, it can get rocky. Ask Jaylen Brown and Brandon Miller. Both players took over a year to feel some sense of normalcy. Right now, we’re just five months removed from Williams’ initial surgery.
“This injury is not something where you get two hand surgeries and you’re good to go,” Williams said. “It’s over the course of the year, a year and a half and have summers to really figure it out to really get back to normal.”
We’ll see how Williams feels once the playoffs roll around. He has three months to become a more consistent scorer. The jumper has to be friendlier. Especially at the mid-range and on his catch-and-shoot outside looks. If not, an already struggling half-court offense might be unsalvageable.
Some folks have suggested Williams sit out until he’s fully healthy — Huh? Why? He’s healthy right now. Wanting him to sit out games will only delay the process of feeling comfortable again. It’s a suggestion made out of pure frustration that he’s dealing with such a rollercoaster scoring season.
In the meantime, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault believes Williams can help in other ways. Driving to the basket might need to become his bread-and-butter approach. He scored an efficient 26 points in a 117-116 win over the Memphis Grizzlies by mostly doing that.
“It’s a circumstance that’s less than ideal. It’s forcing him to work through that. Give himself some grace, put the work in day by day — even though the changes day by day may not be drastic,” Daigneault said. “Focus on the other things that he can do to impact the game outside of things that require the full range of motion of his right wrist.”
If the Thunder are going to go back-to-back, Williams has to be better by the playoffs. If not, it’s difficult to envision OKC winning four playoff series with just one high-end scorer — even if he’s the best in the league in Gilgeous-Alexander.
“Every circumstance is a challenge and opportunity. Depends on how you look at it,” Daigneault said. “It’s his challenge right now to look at it as an opportunity. We’re confident he will.”