Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t fighting back tears. He was crying. And Mark Daigneault didn’t mince words.
“We’re not doing great,” the Thunder coach said.
Jalen Williams’ left leg/ankle injury Sunday night was gruesome. Ajay Mitchell covered his face. Gilgeous-Alexander buried his head in his jersey. Alex Caruso and Chet Holmgren crouched around Williams, whose shock seemed to supersede his pain.
J-Dub’s immediate reaction was to throw his hands in the air, as if he was saying, ‘Really? Again?’
After enduring a wrist injury throughout the Thunder’s title run two seasons ago that ultimately required surgery, and after suffering a series of hamstring injuries last season that might have kept the Thunder from repeating as champs, it feels like another Thunder run hinges on the health of its 25-year-old All-NBA forward.
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But devastating as this is/could be for the Thunder, the season isn’t lost. (Thunder GM Sam Presti had yet to provide the injury update at the time this was written). But even in the worst-case scenario — in which Williams is out for the remainder of the season — the Thunder’s ceiling is still that of a title team.
Last season proved as much. Williams played a total of 55 minutes in the Western Conference finals against the Spurs, and still OKC took San Antonio to seven games and almost won. And that was with Ajay Mitchell, OKC’s best Williams replacement, missing the last four games of the Spurs series.
The Thunder’s depth has been depleted after a few cost-saving summer moves, but that’s more of a regular season than playoff concern. Neither Isaiah Joe nor Aaron Wiggins were factors in the Spurs series. They barely played. Lu Dort’s on-ball defense will be missed, but Dort had a poor offensive series against the Spurs.
Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs should be even more fearsome this spring than they were last, but the Thunder still has the reigning back-to-back MVP and a bunch of young guys — Holmgren, Cason Wallace (we’ll see about his injury), Mitchell and Jared McCain among them — who have yet to reach their primes.
And the Thunder still has Alex Caruso, the ultimate playoff riser. And floater extraordinaire Isaiah Hartenstein, who held up admirably against Wembanyama.
Jaylin Williams and Kenrich Williams are reliable role players, and Aday Mara could be deployed in spots. Like a 7-foot-2 knuckleballer.
The Thunder isn’t as deep as it was a year ago, but it’s still deep enough to sustain J-Dub’s injury without making a short-sighted trade.
Outside of San Antonio, I’m dubious that any West team can beat the Thunder in a playoff series. With or without Jalen Williams.
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One big caveat aside: the rest of the team is healthy. Because that’s what doomed the Thunder last season. It wasn’t that Jalen Williams was hurt. Or Ajay Mitchell was hurt. It’s that they both were hurt, and there was no one else — try as McCain might — to create sustainable offense.
Presti, in his preseason address, described J-Dub as the Thunder’s “force multiplier.”
Not only is he an all-world player individually, but he supercharges his teammates on both sides of the floor. Williams is skilled enough, big enough and strong enough to complement any lineup combination. He’s Daigneault’s most malleable player.
Peak J-Dub is a 20-point, five-rebound, five-assist player who can defend point guards, power forwards and everyone in between.
It’s crazy, really, that the Thunder is still a championship-caliber team without that player. We’ve seen it, though. J-Dub played a total of 38 games across the last regular season and postseason, and the Thunder was five wins away from the title.
At the same time, we also saw OKC fall short without Williams (and Mitchell). We saw how much pressure it put on SGA. How hard it was to score.
For however long Williams is out, every Thunder bump and bruise will be magnified.
Can OKC win the title without J-Dub? Absolutely. That’s still the ceiling.
It just looks further away than it did 48 hours ago.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder remains an NBA championship team despite Jalen Williams injury | Mussatto