After enduring myriad health woes throughout the 2025-26 season, OKC Thunder star Jalen Williams has some believing he warrants an "injury-prone" branding. From wrist problems to numerous hamstring strains, the forward was held to a mere 33 games of action and missed all but five games during the playoffs as a result of his nagging injuries.
However, it mustn't be forgotten that Williams has played in 69 or more games in every other season he's been in the league, and even managed not only to play through but also to serve as the unquestioned number two option on Oklahoma City's 2025 title-winning squad while battling a torn scapholunate ligament in his right shooting wrist that ultimately required surgery.
Heading into year five with the Thunder, J-Dub is presumably aiming to make last season look like a mere anomaly more than anything else and reestablish himself as a high-stakes game-changer. Fortunately, right out of the gate, he'll have an opportunity to do just that, and in front of a rather familiar opponent.
OKC's season opener against the Spurs is a game Williams expects to have "a playoff-type atmosphere," what with the two clubs' recent postseason bout and brewing young rivalry.
To the star forward, there's no better way to start the season than against a "hungry" team like San Antonio, emphasizing that it will be "a great challenge" both for him and the Thunder to kick off their revenge tour.
Spurs never saw a 100 percent Jalen Williams when playing Thunder
Though the Thunder and Spurs may have squared off against one another a total of 12 times last season (five in the regular season and seven during the playoffs), they never once saw Jalen Williams at 100 percent.
Whether it was the rust built up from his offseason surgery that, as he once put it, made his wrist feel as if it were Laffy Taffy that was left in the freezer, "and then trying to bend it," or the several hamstring flare-ups in the latter half of the year and through the postseason, J-Dub was objectively a shell of his full-strength self that, just a season before, was dropping 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.6 per night and was selected to an All-NBA and All-Defensive team.
Even without his services, the bruised and battered Thunder were still able to bring Victor Wembanyama and company to a hard-fought seven games in the Western Conference Finals and, ultimately, fell nine points shy of clinching their second-straight trip to the title round.
One can only imagine what OKC would have been able to accomplish had their primary co-star been a full go.
Following an offseason filled with rehab, recovery, and, apparently, working on restructuring the damaging way his body "naturally sits," the hope is he can show the Spurs exactly what they were fortunate enough to miss out on as soon as opening night.
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