Jaylin Williams is making an impact on the OKC Thunder
By Rylan Stiles
The Early stages of Jaylin Williams’s rookie season
During that time with the OKC Blue, I was told by head coach Kameron Woods, Thunder bench boss Mark Daigneault, and even Jaylin Williams himself that he was focusing on playing with more “offensive force.”
With the Blue, Williams was a defensive anchor cleaning up the back end and using his strong voice to communicate and align his teammates. On offense, he continued to splash triples, used his body and positioning to free up his teammates on screens and handoffs, and was placed more in a half-court high-post playmaking role. A role that he has been placed in more with the Thunder as he gains more NBA time.
High-Post play making by Jaylin Williams is high-level stuff and something Mark Daigneault has always liked to utilize did it a ton with Al Horford, Great play to showcase it here; reset feed from Joe, Great Giddey cut, 100 mph bounce pass right on time: pic.twitter.com/Vvh5pZHpXC
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) February 8, 2023
Jaylin Williams even compiled a triple-double during his time with the NBA G-League club. However, in his short NBA action, it was hard for any of those traits to translate in such a short duration.
Then, the Oklahoma City Thunder were bit by the injury bug when Aleksej Pokusevski and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl went down for a significant amount of time in December.
That threw the rookie big man straight into the fire, and in his first game as a rotation staple, he struggled mightily against the Hornets before being tasked with the impossible task of defending Joel Embiid.
In his first three games of heavy minutes, Williams averaged three points, five rebounds, and an assist per game, shooting 23 percent from the floor and 28 percent from beyond the arc.
After that three-game stretch, Williams did not play in the next three contests. When he returned, he was once again playing Joel Embiid. Though, he faired much better. This started the boom era.