{"id":703801,"date":"2026-04-07T18:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703801\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T18:07:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:07:18","slug":"jalen-williams-update-offers-golden-opportunity-for-jared-mccain-to-snap-out-of-rut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703801\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Williams update offers golden opportunity for Jared McCain to snap out of rut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heading into their final back-to-back of the regular season, the OKC Thunder are opting to sit All-Star forward Jalen Williams<\/a> in Tuesday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers as he continues to manage a nagging hamstring strain.<\/p>\n

In his absence, Jared McCain may finally have the get-right game necessary to snap out of his ongoing slump.<\/p>\n

Upon his arrival to the Thunder ahead of the February 5 trade deadline, the sophomore guard found himself quickly assimilating to the defending champ’s on-court scheme, especially while J-Dub was sidelined with his lower-body ailment, where he was dropping tremendous averages of 13.1 points on 46.5 percent shooting from the floor and 43.5 percent shooting from deep.<\/p>\n

Since Williams’ return on March 23, however, McCain’s on-court production has taken a severe nose-dive, as he’s been posting mere averages of just 5.3 points on 41.0 percent shooting from the field and an abysmal 19.0 percent shooting from deep.<\/p>\n

It’s no coincidence that his minutes have taken a serious hit as well, going from 19.8 without Williams to just 14.7 since his reintroduction.<\/p>\n

Considering this is McCain’s first lick of meaningful, late-game action in the pros, and he’s soon slated to take part in his first postseason run, snapping out of his current rut and getting back into a groove during these final four games should be a must for both him and the Thunder.<\/p>\n

A Jalen Williams-less outing against the Lakers could prove to be the perfect way for him to gain much-needed momentum.<\/p>\n

Thunder must remain cautious with Jalen Williams during final games<\/p>\n

Considering how things played out during their last bout against the Lakers, with Luka Doncic enduring a gut-punch hamstring injury himself<\/a>, it should come as no surprise that the Thunder are taking things easy with their already hobbled star in their rematch.<\/p>\n

Frankly, with only four games remaining on the regular season schedule, they should stay cautious with their use of Williams leading up to the playoffs.<\/p>\n

As J-Dub said while commenting on Doncic’s “spooky” ailment, “that injury sucks,” specifically suggesting how easy it is for flare-ups to come about and prevent one from getting back into a groove on the hardwood.<\/p>\n

Already this season, Williams has been sidelined for multi-week absences on two separate occasions as a result of his hamstring strain.<\/p>\n

With the ultimate goal for the Thunder being a repeat championship run, staving off any more residual hamstring ailments should be one of coach Mark Daigneault’s top priorities ahead of the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into their final back-to-back of the regular season, the OKC Thunder are opting to sit All-Star forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-703801","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-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116364761050528677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703801","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=703801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}