{"id":114027,"date":"2025-06-21T08:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T08:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/114027\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T08:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T08:40:12","slug":"thunder-notes-sga-market-jalen-williams-k-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/114027\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder Notes: SGA, Market, Jalen Williams, K. Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now leading Indiana 3-2 in the NBA Finals, the Thunder and their All-NBA point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> are on the cusp of securing their first title in Oklahoma City. Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman<\/a> (subscriber link) unpacks what that would mean for the team, Gilgeous-Alexander, All-NBA forward Jalen Williams<\/a>, big man Chet Holmgren<\/a>, team owner Clay Bennett, longtime general manager Sam Presti, head coach Mark Daigneault, and more.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander, who\u2019s already one of the most NBA\u2019s most efficient scoring guards, can still be maximized as a distributor by Oklahoma City, writes Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca<\/a>. Grange observes that, over the last 40 years, only Gilgeous-Alexander and Kevin Durant<\/a> have scored 2,400 or more points with a true shooting mark of .630 or better, both during their respective MVP seasons for the Thunder.<\/p>\n

The 6\u20196\u2033 guard continues to try to thread the needle when it comes to looking to score and looking to involve other players in the offense. Grange notes that Gilgeous-Alexander notched eight assists in Game 2 and 10 more in Game 5, but has had just seven total dimes in the other three games of the series.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more out of Oklahoma City:<\/p>\n

The Thunder\u2019s consistent organizational infrastructure has helped the club return to the NBA Finals and reach the brink of a championship, observes Anthony Slater of The Athletic<\/a>. Presti has held his gig for 18 seasons and counting, while Bennett has proven to be a stabilizing force on the business front. Slater notes that the Thunder, who won just 24 games three years ago, have managed a remarkable turnaround back to contention.
\nThe Thunder have hardly let being the league\u2019s third-smallest market franchise limit their aspirations, writes Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic<\/a>. Rival executives are convinced that Oklahoma City spends extensively on its front office\u2014 its 88 basketball operations staffers lap the big-market Lakers\u2019 56. Vorkunov also notes that the team\u2019s front office stability has been appealing to help the team retain talent.
\nHall of Fame former Chicago forward Scottie Pippen has noticed the parallels between himself and All-NBA Thunder wing Jalen Williams, writes Tim MacMahon of ESPN<\/a>. Both were two-way standouts who blossomed next to more established scoring guards en route to Finals appearances. \u201cHe is pretty special,\u201d Pippen told MacMahon. \u201cI\u2019m enjoying watching him. I see a lot of me in him for sure. I see a guy rising to be one of the top players in this league. He\u2019s definitely a player that is capable of being able to lead that franchise to multiple championships \u2014 him and Shai, of course.\u201d
\nIn another piece for The Oklahoman<\/a> (subscriber link), Mussatto examines Kenrich Williams<\/a>\u2018 natural fit in Oklahoma City. Williams has now been with the Thunder longer than every player on the roster aside from Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s an old head,\u201d Dort said of Williams. \u201cHe has an old soul. You feel it every time you\u2019re around him. His leadership has been big for us on and off the court.\u201d Williams is in the second year of a four-season, $27.2MM deal with the club. Thanks to a deep backcourt, Daigneault has been deploying Williams in spot minutes throughout the playoffs. He\u2019s been averaging 8.1 MPG in the 14 games he\u2019s seen action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now leading Indiana 3-2 in the NBA Finals, the Thunder and their All-NBA point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,364,5760,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,3837,209,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-114027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jalen-williams","10":"tag-kenrich-williams","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-oklahoma","13":"tag-oklahoma-city","14":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","15":"tag-oklahomacity","16":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","17":"tag-scottie-pippen","18":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","19":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114720461623243605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}