It's January 15, 2022. The Gonzaga Bulldogs are the No. 2 ranked team in the entire country, on the road to play the Santa Clara Broncos. Gonzaga's star center — the 7-foot-1 Chet Holmgren — has essentially been the West Coast Conference boogie man all season. His defense is second to none, and challenging him at the rim is how offensive possessions die for overmatched opponents.
There was one opponent, however, who wasn't overmatched that day. His name was Jalen Williams, a Santa Clara junior who did something that no one else had done that season: he attacked Holmgren without fear.
Flash forward two years, and Williams and Holmgren now share the court as the second- and third-best players on the Oklahoma City Thunder — the youngest team by average age to ever earn the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.
Often called J-Dub due to the presence of another Jaylin Williams on the Thunder roster (Jaylin goes by "Jay Will"), the No. 12 pick of the 2022 NBA Draft has enjoyed an incredible sophomore season. He averaged 19.1 points per game with elite efficiency, boasting a 62.1 true shooting percentage, while also leading the young Thunder squad in fourth-quarter scoring and serving as a Swiss army knife for the team's fourth-ranked defense.
The reasons driving the Thunder's ascendance are many. Mark Daigneault is one of the NBA's best coaches and experiments on both ends of the floor like no other. Holmgren is already one of the best rim protectors in the world and fits like a glove in OKC's five-out offense. And of course, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drives the team more than anyone else, as he's due to finish as one of the NBA's three MVP finalists, and deservedly so.
But as important as any is Williams, who transitioned from exciting rookie to top-40 (or perhaps even top-30) player in the NBA so easily that it's almost gone unnoticed.
Versatility is the name of the game for J-Dub. Every single thing there is to do on a basketball court, J-Dub does at an above-average level, if not a star level. Need someone to get to the rim at will and finish with touch and strength once there? J-Dub's your guy. His handle is tight and under control (particularly on crossovers). His first step is lethal. He takes long strides to gallop past defenders. He can finish his layups with either hand easily.
But most importantly, Williams is powerful. Defenders bounce off him in the paint, and it never deters his beeline to the rim. Like a running back who always gains five yards when he should've gotten three, J-Dub's ability to survive contact on his drives to the rim is impeccable.
The natural reaction to defending a driver as devastating as J-Dub is simple — back up and make him shoot. And for a long time, that seemed like a decent answer. Williams was a career 35.2% three-point shooter over three seasons at Santa Clara, and as a rookie in OKC, he shot 35.6% from deep. He could still make defenders pay plenty of times, but letting J-Dub shoot always appeared to be a better idea than letting him drive.
Until this season, when Williams emerged as one of the more accurate marksmen in the entire NBA. He drained 42.7% of his threes and attempted 3.4 per game, plenty of which were self-created looks off the dribble. Of the 103 threes he made this season, 26 were unassisted, per PBP Stats.
If any defender starts leaning too far back in their stance, J-Dub is hitting them with a quick pound dribble with his left hand, and splashing a step-back three right in their mitt.
While the defense of teammates like Holmgren and Lu Dort garner more attention, J-Dub is a quintessential piece of how the Thunder operate on that end of the floor too. He's listed at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds and is nominally a guard, yet he often matches up with the best 4s and 5s in the league on the defensive end of the floor.
The Thunder's two most dominant five-man lineups this season were the SGA-Cason Wallace-Isaiah Joe-Kenrich Williams-J-Dub unit, and the SGA-Joe-Dort-J-Dub-Holmgren quintet. Those lineups finished the regular season with net ratings of +42.2 and +22.9 points per 100 possessions, respectively, in non-garbage time minutes, per Cleaning The Glass. There are many reasons why those lineups work so well, but Williams' defensive versatility is near chief among them. While the other OKC guards matchup with perimeter creators, J-Dub uses his strength to bang in the post against big men who often have five inches and 30 pounds on him.
According to NBA.com, eight of the nine players he's spent the most time guarding on defense this season include Karl-Anthony Towns, Jerami Grant, Victor Wembanyama, Keegan Murray, Jaren Jackson Jr., Lauri Markkanen, Zion Williamson and Jabari Smith Jr.
No matter the size discrepancy, J-Dub fights to hold his position in the post, and when flying out on the perimeter, he weaponizes his 7-foot-2 wingspan to nab deflections and smother opponents on shot contests. It's why he's ranked in the 94th percentile for Defensive EPM among all players this season, per dunksandthrees.com. It doesn't look perfect all of the time, but the fact that Williams can hold up against larger opponents, while also smothering smaller ones, allows OKC to torch teams with guard-heavy lineups that they can't match.
Like any NBA player who isn't consistently finishing in the top five of MVP voting, there are still certain aspects of J-Dub's game that can improve. His drives and defense are elite, but while his three-point shooting this season was accurate, he could stand to greatly up his volume in seasons to come. He's grown as a playmaker and turned some of the defensive attention he draws into great looks for his teammates, but he only has to bear the full burden of a primary creator for a few minutes each game, while leaving most of the heavy lifting as a passer to his teammate SGA. While his defense is physical and versatile, he still isn't a perfect matchup for all the big men he defends, and the league's best drivers punish J-Dub for his on-ball aggression, blowing past him to the rim for taking a step or two forward that he shouldn't have.
If all of those "weaknesses" sound like picking nits, it's because that's exactly what it is. Williams turned 23 years old just six days ago and already nearly averages 20 points per game for the team with the second-best record in the entire NBA. While not everyone believes in this young Thunder squad as a true contender, realistically, there's a world where they run the table and suddenly J-Dub is the second-best player on a team that wins the Western Conference.
Though the style OKC plays on both offense and defense is modern and innovative, the hierarchy of their three best players is a throwback to traditional star trios. Gilgeous-Alexander is the heliocentric, jumbo point guard who is all but unstoppable when guarded one-on-one. Holmgren is the ideal center who thrives at the two most important skills for any big man: protecting the rim and finishing plays at an elite level on offense. Then there's J-Dub — the two-way wing who shifts seamlessly between playing off-ball when SGA is cooking versus doing his own ball-dominant point guard impersonation in the minutes when SGA is on the bench. He's the rare player who is both perfect as a complement and can easily be asked to do more without it tanking his efficiency.
Jalen William's potential is limitless. Even if he doesn't get any better than what he is right now, the Thunder will be totally fine because he's already one of the best players in the NBA.
