This summer, the OKC Thunder shelled out a potential total of $877.21 million in new, standard deals, with Jalen Williams being eligible to rake in upward of $287 million of these earnings on his own thanks to his new five-year max contract.
Initially, the consensus opinion among fans and pundits alike was that Sam Presti and company rightfully locked down their All-NBA player to an All-NBA type of payday.
However, Jason Timpf of The Volume Sports recently took things a step further by arguing that Williams isn't just a star, but that he's arguably "the best small forward in the NBA."
With this undoubtedly spicy take, it kicks off a rather exciting truth that perhaps the rest of the NBA may not be ready to accept -- Timpf is absolutely right that J-Dub reigns supreme over his positional peers.
Thunder star Jalen Williams is the best small forward in the NBA today
Though he may have played substantial minutes at both the four and, especially while all three of Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Jaylin Williams were out early in the year, the five in 2024-25, the 6-foot-6 Williams is without question a natural three.
When fully healthy, coach Mark Daigneault made sure to structure his lineup with him as such, which led the Thunder to a 24-9 record throughout both the regular season and playoffs as well as the franchise's first NBA Championship of the Sooner State era.
On the offensive end, he may have trailed behind more popular players at his position, like Jaylen Brown (22.2) and LeBron James (24.4), in areas such as points per game last season, but Williams' average of 21.6 per night came while clearly boasting the lowest usage percentage out of all three and, in the case of Brown, with a higher true shooting percentage (57.3 compared to 55.5).
Defensively, it's hard to find a small forward who's as switchable and overall reliable as the Thunder star.
Last season, he ranked seventh in the entire league in versatility on the less glamorous side of the ball, according to CraftedNBA, while finishing fifth in the league in deflections and, among all starters who saw over 50 games of action, fourth in defensive rating (106.5).
Add all this to Timpf's many strong points made in his podcast, such as his innate distribution skills and the fact that he ranked 10 in shots at the rim per game throughout the playoffs (while playing with a torn ligament in his dominant shooting hand along the way), and it seems quite apparent that Jalen Williams is more than deserving of being crowned as the game's best small forward.