Friday night, Jalen Williams made his return to the lineup for the OKC Thunder after what has been a grueling, months-long recovery period following offseason wrist surgery.
The immediate results of his reintroduction proved extremely promising, as he was seen getting back to his stat-sheet-stuffing ways right away, dropping an impressive 11 points, eight assists, four rebounds, two steals, and a block in 29 minutes of action.
With these well-rounded metrics, along with the fact that Oklahoma City pulled out a down-to-the-wire, hard-fought 123-119 win over the Phoenix Suns, it appears that, at least in the eyes of fans, Williams doesn't appear to have missed a beat.
However, to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, this truly only seems to be the begining of his comeback tour.
Thunder MVP expects Jalen Williams to get far better than debut outing
Despite being far and away the best player on the night (37 points and eight assists on 60.0 percent shooting from deep), Gilgeous-Alexander couldn't help but gush over the potential that a full-strength Williams possesses on the hardwood during his post-game interview, specifically highlighting that, while he performed sensationaly in the distribution and defensive areas of play, his best is still ahead.
"He was great defensively. He was great playing basketball, which is what he does. He's a hooper. No matter what it looks like out there, he's going to be comfortable making the right plays on both ends of the floor. All the touch and little things will come back to him, don't worry about that. He's a hell of a player for a reason and he showed it tonight," Gilgeous-Alexander said.
Though the Thunder have proven capable of excelling without the likes of J-Dub in the mix over the years, it's undeniable that, with him at 100 percent, they are clearly the ultimate version of themselves.
After all, we're talking about an established All-NBA and All-Defensive selectee who's coming off a 2024-25 campaign where he posted sensational, all-around averages of 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.6 steals on 48.4 percent shooting from the floor and 36.5 percent shooting from deep, joining this already top-ranked, 19-1 Thunder squad.
In only his first game back, fans were reminded of what his presence in the rotation brings to the team as a whole. From the club seeing an impressive 23 shot attempts with the closest defender over six feet away to OKC seeing the fourth-highest net rating (7.7) with him on the floor, Williams' on-court gravity is truly game-changing.
The scariest part of all, however, is that this is presumably the worst version of the Thunder with Williams back in the mix that will be seen in 2025-26, and Gilgeous-Alexander reminded everyone of this following Friday's NBA Cup Quarterfinals advancing win.