The Oklahoma City Thunder are in the midst of one of the more trying seasons in recent franchise history. It's a strange statement to make considering Oklahoma City has the best record in the NBA at 37-8, but multiple injury battles have kept star wing Jalen Williams from playing at a consistently high level.
With Williams again sidelined, the Thunder are faced with a harrowing truth: They've been better without him, but will struggle to repeat as NBA champions if he isn't at his best in the playoffs.
Williams has appeared in 24 of the Thunder's 45 games during the 2025-26 regular season. During that time, Oklahoma City has gone 17-7. While that's by no means a bad record—in fact, it sets a 58-win pace—the Thunder are 20-1 without him.
Though it's unfair to compare any result to a 20-1 record, Williams has struggled individually. Furthermore, Oklahoma City is 6.8 points per 100 possessions better when he's off the court.
Williams has been strong on the surface, averaging 16.8 points, 5.6 assists, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.3 steals in 29.6 minutes per game. He's even shooting 47.0 percent from the field. Unfortunately, his three-point shooting woes have continued at 30.0 percent.
With offseason wrist surgery seemingly impacting his shooting and a hamstring injury now sidelining him for several weeks, the Thunder are running out of time to adequately reintegrate Williams.
Thunder running out of time to reintegrate Jalen Williams before playoffs
It's worth noting that Williams has a history of starting seasons slow, with the 2024-25 campaign instantly coming to mind. He shot just 34.3 percent from beyond the arc between his first 48 appearances after burying 42.7 percent of his attempts in 2023-24.
Williams shot 41.3 percent from distance over his final 21 regular season games, which offers some level of optimism in regard to how he can rebound from a slow start in 2025-26.
Williams shot 34.8 percent from three over his final five regular season games in 2024-25, however, and checked in at 30.4 percent during the playoffs. As such, his current mark of 30.0 in 2025-26 is less of an outlier when factoring in his most recent stretches of availability.
This is by no means an attack on Williams' quality, but is instead meant to highlight the impact of the wrist injury that appears to still be disrupting his shot.
With all of that established, the Thunder have ample reason to remain patient with his return to form. He is, after all, coming off of a season in which he received All-NBA, All-Defense, and All-Star recognition, on top of contributing at a star-caliber level to a championship.
The unfortunate truth that leaves Oklahoma City in an agonizing gray area is that there are less than three months left until the playoffs begin—and he needs to be up to speed before then.
The Thunder may be world-beating defending champions, but going back-to-back is a historic feat for a reason. Every team in the NBA will have spent the past year game planning for a postseason series against Oklahoma City, thus requiring innovation from the coaching staff and consistency from the stars to overcome this challenge.
The Thunder have thus been forced to toe the line between superior regular season results without Williams and the unavoidable need for him to be back at 100 percent for the playoffs.