{"id":310897,"date":"2025-09-29T19:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T19:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/310897\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T19:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T19:16:11","slug":"thunder-all-star-jalen-williams-says-focus-is-on-team-success-ahead-of-2025-26-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/310897\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder All-Star Jalen Williams says focus is on team success ahead of 2025-26 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1759173371_292_image\" style=\"display:none\" alt=\"https:\/\/img.particlenews.com\/image.php?url=0riAfB_15BwA01u00\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jalen Williams spoke to media at Thunder Media Day on Monday, addressing questions regarding his journey in the offseason.<\/p>\n<p>Watch OKC Thunder Media Day below: <\/p>\n<p>All-Star forward Jalen \u201cJDub\u201d Williams begins his fourth season with Oklahoma City, which drafted him 12th overall in the 2022 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n<p>Williams was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 2023 and has improved statistically each season. He averaged 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.6 steals per game on 48.4% shooting and 36.5% from 3-point range last season. That production earned him his first All-Star appearance and a spot on the All-NBA Third Team.<\/p>\n<p>However, Williams says his success on the court is a byproduct of the team&#8217;s goals for success.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not playing for the TV games or a contract,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;This is going to sound really dramatic, but you are chasing greatness. You&#8217;re chasing to achieve stuff that hasn&#8217;t been done in our organization.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news9.com\/story\/6864300ea44bf715651b5df9\/thunder-s-jalen-williams-undergoes-successful-wrist-surgery-re-evaluated-in-12-weeks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thunder&#8217;s Jalen Williams undergoes successful wrist surgery, re-evaluated in 12 weeks<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Williams, who signed a five-year, maximum rookie contract with the Thunder over the offseason, says he works to make sure he is where his team needs him.<\/p>\n<p>SEE ALSO: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news9.com\/story\/68701469b07b2e6a8d653f6b\/jdub-okc-thunder-new-contract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalen Williams agrees to a maximum contract with OKC Thunder<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Getting notoriety is not something I&#8217;m playing for,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;My job, defensively, is to make sure I&#8217;m on time and I&#8217;m doing the right things for my team.<\/p>\n<p>Williams played in 69 games despite suffering a torn wrist ligament late in the regular season. The injury did not prevent him from averaging 21.4 points in the playoffs, including a 40-point performance in Game 5 of the Finals against Indiana.<\/p>\n<p>MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news9.com\/story\/68dabf53d4c68ca8cf1010f5\/thunder-media-day-lu-dort\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lu Dort speaks at Thunder Media Day: &#8216;Still a lot of work to be done&#8217;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Williams underwent surgery July 1 and is expected to be ready for the start of the 2025-26 season. He signed a five-year contract extension worth up to $287 million following the championship run.<\/p>\n<p> Christian Hans <\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">Christian Hans is a Digital Content Producer for News 9. He joined News 9 full-time in July of 2022 after graduating from the University of Oklahoma. <\/p>\n<p> Drake Johnson <\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">Drake Johnson is a Digital Content Producer at Griffin Media. He joined the team in July 2021 after graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Williams spoke to media at Thunder Media Day on Monday, addressing questions regarding his journey in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,4500,2679,6,50155,5241,310,475,179,3966,3965,312,50154],"class_list":{"0":"post-310897","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-breaking-news","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-news-9-kwtv-oklahoma-city","13":"tag-newsbreak","14":"tag-oklahoma","15":"tag-oklahoma-city","16":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","17":"tag-oklahomacity","18":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","19":"tag-thunder","20":"tag-thunder-all-star-jalen-williams-says-focus-is-on-team-success-ahead-of-2025-26-season"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115289193490161363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310897","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=310897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}