Jalen Williams Is More Than a “Role Player”

Jalen Williams Is More Than a “Role Player”

A lot of people seem to have this misconception with Jaylen Williams that he’s way more of a role player than he actually is and a lot of that is probably just the result of narratives making their way into most people’s minds or just simply not watching him

Play because if you have watched him play before you’d know that he’s far from your average role player Jaylen Williams seems to get this Supporting Cast label because he plays alongside Shel just Alexander who’s an all-nba caliber player and potential MVP candidate and Chad holgren who looks

Like he’s going to be a star caliber player for years to come but my question is why does any of that prohibit Jaylen Williams from being considered a guy with future star potential and listen I’m not going to sit here and try to argue that he should be an Allstar this

Year even though some people have made the argument that he does that’s not the point of this video I want to unpack some of these myths about Jaylen Williams and get to the truth about whether or not he is or isn’t a guy that has Allstar games in his future at a

Glance this season he’s averaging 18.7 points 4.1 rebounds and 4 and 1 half assists per game he’s scoring at a super efficient rate of 62.8% true shooting all of that is really good stuff I’m not going to sit here and argue that that’s an All-Star statline by any means but

That’s not the point people seem to think that he just does off Ball scoring and that he’s not really a great offensive Creator whether for himself or for others and the only reason that he’s able to score as efficiently as he does is because of how much defenses are

Keyed in on stopping Shay gild just Alexander and don’t get me wrong he definitely benefits from that let’s set the record straight if you watch what he’s doing when he’s operating as the lead guard with Shay on the bench it’s clear that he can go and get his own

Bucket at an extremely high level we can see that in the possessions where jdub is on the floor without Shay the amount that he’s being assisted on his made shots drops significantly from all areas of the floor except for in the short mid-range which he’s already being

Assisted at a relatively low amount he’s been such a strong scorer this year that the Thunder go into the fourth quarter with Shay on the bench and they’ll just let Jaylen Williams operate as the lead ball handler to just let him cook opposing defenses and then they just

Throw Shay back in roughly halfway through the fourth quarter I think this further disproves The Narrative that Jaylen Williams doesn’t have to deal with as much defensive attention because he’s playing alongside Shay when he is the lead guard and Lead Creator and lead scorer in these lineups where Shay’s on

The bench he is seeing increased defensive attention and he’s still scoring despite all of that and while we’re talking about these fourth quarter minutes where Shay’s on the bench Jaylen Williams is scoring the fifth most points per fourth quarter over the last 15 games and he’s the third most

Efficient of these leading fourth quarter scorers in that span this isn’t a guy that’s just having buckets spoonfed to him he’s fully capable of taking guys off the dribble attacking the basket to get to the rim and finish through contact and he’s developed a strong mid-range game very similar to

Shay in a lot of ways using quick changes of pace to get Defenders stumbling and create separation and he has really great footwork to get into turnaround jumpers and he can create step backs both inside and outside of the three-point line it doesn’t just stop at scoring though the best players

Are the ones that make offense easier for everybody else because of how good of a score they are and to me that’s what separates the guys that are just a scorer from the guys that are actual Allstars and Jaylen Williams is starting to make that distinction the Thunder

Give him a lot of opportunities in set plays that allow him to leverage this scoring ability for easy offense the first one that we’re going to look at is this motion strong Chase action it forces defenses to navigate a lot of off ball screens and react to Quick passing

And cutting and we’re going to see how jdub uses it to his Advantage he’s going to initially bring the ball up the floor and pay attention to Norm pal following Cas Wallace off the initial staggered pin Downs Pal’s going to actually do a pretty good job of making that initial

Switch from Wallace onto jdub and then he’s put into another action with Chad as the screener and this is going to allow jdub to get by him to attack downhill Mason plumbley is not really going to have any choice but to help off the corner to try and slow him down and

Coffee is going to leave meich to try and slow down jdub’s drive but all it does is create a wideopen pass to the corner and he’s able to attack the basket off the pass and get the finish this Chicago Action is another play that the Thunder Run for him a lot allowing

Him to ideally get an advantage coming off the initial pin down and handoff forcing defense is into helping to try and stop his drives here he comes off of Chad’s screen while meic is cutting to the dunker spot and the reason this play works is because jdub is going to demand

So much defensive attention on his drive plus the cut from meich is going to pull the defense away from the corner leaving Cas wide open for an easy catch and shoot three this play is a staple of OKC’s offense and they make use of ghost screens probably more than any other

Team in the NBA and it takes advantage of that chemistry and defensive attention that jdub and Chad demand and when they’re running a two-man action together here JB’s going to come to get the pass off the initial ghost screen and then he sends it to Chad in the

Corner so that they can get into this empty side dribble handoff now Caris LeVert does a pretty good job following him around all this action but with Chet and jaub running the initial hand off over on the wing it pulls Jared Allen away from the paint and unable to

Provide help defense on jdub’s drive and streu who was initially following case Wallace on that cut is going to have to make sure that jdub doesn’t get an easy look at The Rim with Wallace moving into space inside the paint jdub makes use of the defense over helping onto him to

Drop it off for the easy finish all of these plays are from when he’s not sharing the floor with Shay so let’s take a quick look at his numbers per 75 possessions when he’s the lead guy with Shay on the bench I don’t know about you but these numbers look like a future

Allstar to me and I’ve spent a lot of this video talking about what Jaylen Williams does as an on ball threat because that is where he seems to get overlooked by most people who aren’t paying much attention to him but his ability to blend the off ball scoring

And the on Ball scoring is something that very few players can do while still remaining effective the versatility of what he can do off ball is also really rare on one play he could just be camped out on the wing waiting for a driver to collapse the defense so that he can get

An easy look for a spot up three and then on the next play he could be camped out in the dunker spot waiting for Shay to draw extra defensive help so that he can get an easy dump off for a slam for some reason the fact that he’s so good

At scoring off ball is something people use as evidence as to why he doesn’t have All-Star potential but in my opinion the fact that he’s able to flip the switch so effortlessly between perfect off ball pairing alongside Shay into a highly efficient scorer and offensive Creator is just more evidence

As to why he does have star potential all of this doesn’t even take into account how good of a Defender he is this guy is 6’6 and while that’s not necessarily tall enough to switch everything the fact that he has a 7’2 wingspan really solid lateral movement capabilities active hands in strong

Defensive instincts make him a really tough problem for offenses to try and solve the defensive impact is echoed by the fact that when he’s on the floor OKC’s defense allows 3.7 fewer points per 100 possessions than when he’s off the floor and that’s tied for the fifth best defensive onoff swing among Wings

In the NBA according to cleaning theeg glass.com so after all of this to me you can go from trapping up top here to recovering to Stewart in the paint and when Shay closes out a little bit too hard he’s able to step in front of him

And shut down the drive and force the miss when OKC traps a little bit too hard here and they’re forced into rotation Keegan Murray’s going to make this cut to try and keep jdub in the paint but he’s going to recognize what’s going on he’s going to be able to close

Out Force the drive into the help defense in the paint and they’re going to be able to force the miss the question isn’t why do people think Jaylen Williams has All-Star potential the question is why don’t people think he has All-Star potential and some folks

Are quick to use his age as an argument which I don’t think really holds up to scrutiny he’s only 2 2 2 years old and he was 21 as a rookie plenty of guys have been able to develop into Allstars despite coming into the NBA at 21 and a

Lot of them didn’t have nearly as hot of a start to their career as Jaylen Williams has had this is a chart from dunsen 3.com showing Jaylen Williams 30 game moving average EPM and how it Stacks up to Jaylen Brown Chris Middleton and male Bridges jdub is already well ahead of schedule compared

To where these guys were after their first 100 games or so and assuming he continues to Trend upwards which seems like a fair assumption it feels a lot more likely that he is a perennial Allstar than not his box score isn’t going to jump off the page I’m not

Necessarily saying that he’s going to turn into some 30 point perame MVP caliber player but considering everything that he’s shown so far and everything that he’s doing to help the Thunder win the idea of him becoming an All-Star seems completely reasonable hope you guys enjoyed this video I’d

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Jalen Williams is even better than you think. The OKC Thunder have been on fire lately, and a large part of their success has been the breakout second season that Jalen Williams has been having. Not only is he the perfect compliment alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren, he’s been so good that the Oklahoma City Thunder have been using him as a microwave scorer to try and bury teams in fourth quarters.

A lot of people have had this misconception about JDub that he’s just a role player, supporting cast type of player, but the truth is that Jalen Williams is so much better than that label would lead you to believe, and just because he’s capable of blending on-ball and off-ball responsibilities, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have future star written all over him.

The no. 12 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft might just eclipse all expectations, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are looking scary because of it.

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