Before Sam Presti dove into questions, the Oklahoma City Thunder general manager handed out injury updates as the NBA champions shift into offseason mode. He said Jalen Williams will undergo wrist surgery to repair torn ligaments and should be ready by the start of the 2025-26 season.

This shouldn’t be a shocker to anybody who followed the Thunder in their path to an NBA championship these past playoffs. The 24-year-old sported heavy wrist tape throughout OKC’s playoff run. Any time he’d get asked about it, he’d act coy.

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But Presti applauded the All-NBA player for gutting out the playoffs with a wrist injury. He revealed he suffered it near the end of the regular season and knew it eventually needed to undergo surgery.

“J-Dub is going to have surgery on that wrist. I want to just acknowledge for a second how impressed I am with him. The injury took place before the playoffs began, so against Phoenix we had a back-to-back — I cannot remember, it may have been Lakers-Phoenix. It occurred during that game,” Presti said. “We knew he was going to need surgery at the end of the season, and he played the two months with this injury. It’s just a ligament tear. It’s not an injury that he’ll have any problem recovering from. It’s pretty common.”

Williams averaged 21.4 points on 44.9% shooting, 5.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 23 playoff games. His magnum opus was a 40-point explosion in Game 5 of the 2025 NBA Finals to put the Thunder ahead 3-2 in the series over the Indiana Pacers.

What a warrior. Williams wrote his name in Thunder history with his standout performance in the playoffs. Any questions on whether he’s a good-enough second option on a title contender were swiftly answered with a resounding yes. The 24-year-old took to social media to flex the fact he played through a broken wrist now that it became public information.

After you win an NBA championship, you can run as many victory laps as you want.

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Jalen Williams to undergo wrist surgery, be ready by 2025-26 season