In July, the OKC Thunder signed forward Jack White to a two-year, 3.9 million dollar contract with 600,000 guaranteed for this season. White is a 6’7, 225-pound Australian forward who played collegiately at Duke University for four years and went undrafted in the 2020 NBA draft.
In July 2020, he signed a three-year deal with Melbourne United of the National Basketball League in Australia and played with the United until 2022.
In July 2022, Jack White signed a two-way contract with the Denver Nuggets; he appeared in seventeen games for the Nuggets while playing the rest of the season with the Grand Rapids Gold. Jack White would go on to win an NBA Championship with the Nuggets.
Jack White becomes another forward in a crowded room of players who are 6’5-6’9 trying to make this roster, and he is one of the most inexperienced players brought in that they didn’t draft this year. Does Jack White show enough in training camp to make the team?
OKC Thunder Roster Bubble: Will Jack White survive training camp?
Jack White is a 26-year-old forward who has not played many games in the NBA. He played four years of college basketball, followed by three seasons in the National Basketball in Australia, before playing his seventeen games in the NBA this season, averaging only four minutes per game for the Denver Nuggets. He has more international experience than he does NBA experience playing for his home country, Australia.
Jack White also plays for the Australian National Team alongside Josh Giddey, and they are currently competing in the FIBA World Cup.
He spent 15 games playing in the G-League this past season for the Grand Rapids Gold and averaged thirty-one minutes per game. He scored 19.5 points, 8.9 rebounds, and .9 steals per game while shooting fifty-four percent from the field, forty-one percent from three, and seventy-four from the free throw line. He showed flashes in the G-league that give hope that he can be an end-of-the-bench role player for the OKC Thunder.
The Case for Jack White making the team:
Jack White makes the Thunder roster because of his solid defense and good rebounding ability for his size. White plays bigger than his 6’7 frame would suggest and takes pride on the defensive end.
It was perfectly on display in the opening game of the FIBA World Cup when he trapped Lauri Markkanen to force a turnover. He also showed his cutting ability when Josh Giddey drove to the basket; he perfectly timed a backdoor cut for an easy layup.
White is a good catch-and-shoot three-point shooter, as he made forty-one percent of his threes in the G-League last year on 4.5 attempts per game.
He has shown that ability in the short time he has played with Josh Giddey, and his ability to move off the ball is reasonable.
In the G-League, he had a 66% actual shooting percentage in seventeen games with an offensive rating of 122. For reference, Jalen Williams had a 60 percent true shooting percentage and an offensive rating of 118 during his rookie season. He has shown the ability to be a good role player in spurts, the question remains whether he is good enough defensively to stay on the floor.
The Case against Jack White making the team:
Jack White has a partial guarantee in his contract this season of $600,000, and the Thunder have to pay him whether he is on the roster or not. White is a lot like Kenrich Williams in that he is an undersized big who is a solid three-point shooter and can play good defense. He is trying to find a spot amid a crowded forward room for the Thunder.
The case against Jack White is he has shown promise in the G-league, but that is against worse competition than what he will see in the NBA.
He appeared in seventeen games for the Nuggets and only average one point and one rebound while playing four minutes per game. He was seen as the sixteenth or seventeenth man on a deep Nuggets team. Jack White is a dime-a-dozen player that can be found every summer, and he is solid at a lot of things but isn’t spectacular at one thing.
He is also one of the older players on the roster at twenty-six and has played fewer games than most second-year players.
Jack White is seen as a low-ceiling, high-floor player who could contribute to the team right away, and that is intriguing for a team that has playoff aspirations; but, if he makes the team, he is going to need to play to get better and that takes away developmental minutes from first-rounders like Ousmane Dieng and Cason Wallace.
OKC Thunder Roster Prediction for Jack White:
The signing of Jack White was confusing to me when it was announced to me earlier this summer and it still doesn’t make sense. He has a partial guarantee on his contract that becomes fully guaranteed if he is on the team in January. I think there are a lot of players similar to what Jack White does on the roster and those players have already been in the system for a year or two, like Aaron Wiggins and Kenrich Williams.
He showed some promise in the G-League last year in a limited sample, but everywhere else he has underwhelmed. He is an older player who needs time to develop and on a team that has quite a few players that still need to develop, it will be hard for him to find playing time.
Broadcast summed it up perfectly with Jack White a “big-ish guy, who is not big in stature but plays big” partly why he is a Thunder guy also part of why his skill set is a bit redundant on this roster. The fight for spots in training camp will be so fun to watch.
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) August 25, 2023
As Rylan Stiles said in the Tweet above, Jack White is a bit of a redundant player on the Thunder roster. He doesn’t have very much upside and there are still questions about him playing consistent, good defense. I think the OKC Thunder will give him a real shot to make the team in training camp and preseason. But, my prediction is Jack White doesn’t make the roster and the Thunder still have to pay him his guaranteed money, though a small price for an NBA team to pay.