Thunder coach's training camp quote on Jalen Williams suggests stardom is near

Arguably the biggest surprise about the historical season the OKC Thunder pulled off in 2023-24 was the meteoric rise in the play of forward, Jalen Williams.

Though he established himself as a rising star during his debut campaign, finishing fourth in points and fifth in offensive rating among all first-year talents while earning an All-Rookie First Team selection, year two proved to be a sensational leap in the right direction, as he managed to up his production all across the board.

From his scoring feats that saw his points averages increase by 5.0 a game (19.1 compared to 14.1) to his distribution skills that set a new career-high with 4.5 assists per night, the 23-year-old showed that he is more than capable of serving as a second or third option in the pecking order on this title-hungry Thunder team moving forward.

However, while he certainly has the potential to thrust himself into the league's legitimate star conversation, there are areas in his game that still need to be improved upon before he officially gets over the proverbial hump.

Fortunately, it appears coach Mark Daigneault is stressing the 23-year-old to be more active in a specific area that could help push him over this hurdle and into stardom, as the headman noted during a post-practice media session on day two of training camp that he hopes to see Williams become more of a threat from beyond the arc.

OKC Thunder coach urging Jalen Williams to shoot more 3-pointers

Though he acknowledged that Williams is the type of player whose "development becomes more nuanced very quickly" and that his game has proven to be rather "complete" from an all-around standpoint, heading into year three the reigning Coach of the Year is hoping to see him hoist up more 3-pointers.

"With how he shoots it and how he drives it, if he can shoot more threes and force people to go play him a little bit higher it creates more space for his drives and it makes him even more difficult to guard," Daigneault said.

Throughout the offseason, many have voiced their concerns over the Thunder forward's ability to step up his level of play and become the defacto secondary offensive creator this team needs behind superstar cornerstone, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Though on the surface it may seem that Williams has already established himself as such a player considering he ranked second on the team last season in both points and shot attempts, he did so while being heavily reliant on his teammates getting him clean looks at a bucket.

Looking at the advanced metrics, of his 1,355 points scored on the year (ranked 47 in the entire league), only 110 were generated from isolation plays. Putting this into perspective, Gilgeous-Alexander, who poured in 2,254 points, generated a whopping 512 in isolation sets (ranked second in the league behind Luka Doncic).

Honing his skills as an offensive creator and isolation scorer is largely viewed as one of the last attributes Jalen Williams needs to add to his bag of tricks before he can officially "explode" onto the scene and come across star-studded accolades.

Fortunately, that seems to be exactly what the Thunder coaching staff is stressing for him to do in training camp and as he heads into his junior campaign.