Why Jalen Williams is already BEST small forward in NBA | Oklahoma City Thunder

Why Jalen Williams is already BEST small forward in NBA | Oklahoma City Thunder

What’s up, guys? Thanks as always for supporting the show. It would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Also, make sure you follow us all over social media so you don’t miss any of our content or show announcements. Number 20, JDub. Jaylen Williams. Last season in review for JDub. Played in 69 games, averaged 22 points, five rebounds, and five assists. All career highs for JDub in his third year in the NBA. 2.3 stocks per game. He was 10th in the entire NBA in total steers steals last year, which again is impressive considering he missed 13 games. His efficiency marks, he was 48% from the field. This is where it gets a little complicated because his shooting actually was down across the board last year, but he was dealing with a wrist that was so messed up it had to be surgically repaired after the NBA finals. So, I’m sure that played a substantial role in uh in his shooting percentages throughout the year. He was 48% from the field. That was a career low for him. 37% from three, that was down 6% from the previous year. 79% from the foul line, also a career low. 54% in effective field goal percentage, career low, and 57% true shooting, which is a career low. So, product of several things. Again, the biggest part of it was simply that he was injured. He had a torn ligament and a shooting wrist. He played a huge chunk of the season in the entire playoff run with that. As anybody knows who’s played any basketball, your wrist is arguably the most important part of your follow through. And an injury there would be problematic for anyone. Anybody who’s ever dealt with a Everybody who’s ever played basketball has at least at one point tweaked their shooting wrist. And it is just not fun when you’re trying to shoot the basketball. And I’m sure that played a role. But there were other factors. For instance, his usage rate skyrocketed. In his first two years in the NBA, he was about a 21% usage percentage. Last year, he was at 28%. And that obviously, like any massive increase in volume is likely to come with a drop in efficiency. There are some counter examples. For instance, the next guy on this list is a guy who upped his usage and upped his efficiency, but it’s typically pretty rare. Anytime you experience a large increase in usage, you’re typically going to see a little bit of a drop in efficiency because you’re going to have to take some tougher, more difficult shots as more responsibility falls on you. Some specific shots were failing him last year, which kind of hurt his percentages. He went down on layups from 59% to 54% year-over-year. And then on floaters, which again is another shot that’s going to be impacted by his wrist, went down from 42% to 37%. But by far the biggest piece was just his jump shot, which again I associate at least partially with the wrist injury. A Jaylen Williams jumper this year was worth 0.12 fewer points per shot than last year. Roughly 12%, right? That’s a substantial dip year-over-year in his jump shooting. So Jason, if he got worse year-over-year in all of these bits of shot making, how did he go from out of the list to into the top 20? Well, there are three reasons for that. One, his wrist is now surgically repaired, and I expect him to jump back up as a shot maker next year. Again, the entire structure of this list, and this is the second piece of it, is to project forward to next season. And JDub has improved in every other way as a basketball player. So, I expect him to continue to get better coming into this year. It’s something I’m factoring in. And then third, he really broke out over the second half of his playoff run. And frankly, over the second, you know, the second the second two rounds of that four round sequence, he was one of the best players in the league at that point. Over his last 13 playoff games, stretching from game seven against Denver to him hoisting up the trophy, he averaged 23 points, six rebounds, and four assists per game on 57% true shooting. He had at least 24 points in six of those 13 games. He had a 34-point game against the Wolves in the conference finals, and he had a 40point game in the NBA finals. So, like he kind of figured a lot of his stuff out over the tail end of that playoff run and was playing arguably higher than where I have him ranked on this list. He conquered a lot of his personal demons at that point, played the best basketball of his career when he needed to to get the trophy. So, as I project Jdub forward into this coming season, I expect him to average around 246 and six. I expect him to be right back over 60% true shooting like he was each of the first two seasons of his career. And I expect him to continue to be the alldefense level defender that he was this last season. 246 and six on 60% true shooting and all defense. That’s a top 20 player in the NBA. And that’s what I’m expecting out of JDub this coming season. Now looking at his play type data, last year was the first time in JDub’s career where he logged over a thousand self-creation possessions either meaning pick and rolls, post-ups, and ISOs. Previous seasons he was below that and he was above average in efficiency despite the drop in his shotmaking. Again, these numbers are despite him being basically unable to make jump shots, less likely to make floaters and layups, which is obviously going to nuke his percentages. He ran 1,025 pick and rolls, ISOs, and post-ups, including passes, and gen generated 0.96 points per possession, which is slightly above average. Again, considering the wrist injury and the shot making issues, I expect him to be firmly over a point per possession at volume next year in his shot creation. Somewhere around 1.01, 1.02 at about like, you know, somewhere around 1,200 to,400 uh play types there. So, like I I I think JDub’s going to be a very impactful shot creator in this league. We’re going to talk about it a little bit in a minute as we compare him to Jaylen Brown, who we covered uh in our video last week on Wednesday. But there’s a level of like playmaking and just general floor awareness that JDub has for a thirdyear player on the wing that is really, really rare. In the playoffs last year, JDub demonstrated a remarkable ability to get all the way to the rim. He attempted shots at the rim seven times per game, which was the 10th highest mark out of the entire playoff field, regardless of how many uh rounds your team played. So, including teams who lost in the first round, like the Milwaukee Bucks, the only players who played at least three rounds and attempted more shots at the rim per game than JDub, where were Carl Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards. That’s it. Now again, that obviously doesn’t account for drawing fouls for guys like Shay Gilders Alexander, but even if you just look at drives among all players to play at least 10 playoff games last year, JDub had the fourth most drives per game. Only Sheay, Jaylen Brunson, and Anthony Edwards drove the basketball more. It’s a legit problem for defenses. He brings like real downhill power on his drives. He had a lot of success in semi-transition in this playoff run where he would kind of like get going up the floor as the defense, you know, it’s not really a full transition possession, but before the defense is really set and then he would just take that power dribble and get into the lane and drop his right shoulder and then just power through the guy and get all the way to the rim. He was doing a ton of damage that way. This is a big part of why I have Jaylen Williams above a guy like Jaylen Brown next year. Jaylen Brown is a very similar archetype of player, right? two-way athletic wing. Theoretically, he’s far more experienced, right? But I think JDub will be better next year at the three key things that define that small forward position. One, I think JDub is better at getting to the rim. He was better at getting to the rim last year in less space. So, I as he continues to improve, I expect him and as you know, we’re going to talk we talked about it with Jaylen Brown on Wednesday. Jaylen Brown’s got a lot of miles on his body. I don’t expect him to get more athletic in the coming seasons. So, I think JDub’s better at getting to the rim. I think JDub will be a better jump shooter next year. Reminder, the previous year JDub was good for 1.1 points per pullup jump shot on over 300 attempts. JDub was one of the very best pull-up shooters in the entire NBA the year before last. I think JDub will be a better jump shooter than Jaylen Brown next season. And lastly, I think JDub has already shown himself before this point to be a better passer than Jaylen Brown despite the lack of experience. And I think that gap will continue to grow. He’s just a more natural playmaker. I do think Jaylen Brown is a slightly better onball defender. Like if I had to deploy a single guy on the opposing team’s best player for a playoff series, I think Jaylen Brown is better there. But I think JDub is nearly as good and is actually a better overall team defender. I I just think JDub is a slightly better basketball player right now than Jaylen Brown. And I think that gap will continue to grow next year and will continue to grow in the coming year. So that’s why I have JDub over Jaylen Brown. The keys for JDub’s development obviously getting his shotmaking ability back. A healthy wrist and a good summer in the gym will go a long way to fixing that. He still makes a few poor decisions at the rim. This kind of came to the surface during the series against Dallas two years ago. Uh but continued to be an issue in this playoff run. He shot below 50% on layups in this playoff run. Similar issues to what Shay Gildish Alexander was dealing with. I thought both of those guys just kind of went through extended stretches of the playoff run where they didn’t trust their teammates on some of their kickout reads. And even though JDub is a more natural playmaker, he still was just kind of getting a little bit of tunnel vision on some of his drives over the last couple playoff runs. That’s something that I think will go a long way. Like layup percentage is like a combination of obviously your athleticism, but a big part of layup percentage is just decision- making, just not taking stupid contested layups. Because contested layups, they have potential to serve a purpose for offensive rebounding if you can engage a rim protector, but they also include the risk of floor balance issues when you come screaming down the lane and miss a layup. They could go the other way in transition. Like just making a few better decisions on those drives would go a long way to helping his layup efficiency. Again, he can see the reads. He just needs to get into the habit of making them. And then lastly, the consistency element. This is with all young players. Like guys, like I have the next two guys on this list are guys that I think that their respective fan bases will be very very um like disappointed with where I have them ranked. And one of my big kind of general philosophies with young players is that they’re just they have a lot of fat in their games. They have a lot of like mistake making that undercuts their success. And so it’s really easy to look at their upside and all their potential and be like, “Oh my god, this is what they can do.” But it’s not until they trim the fat and get more consistent on the good stuff that they can actually enter the levels of impact and, you know, influence on the NBA landscape that the top 10 players in this league have. And and when we look at the consistency with JDub, like when JDub scored the ball, well, the Thunder just won. They were 14-2 in the playoffs when JDub scored at least 18 points. They were just two and five in the playoffs when he failed to score 18 points. So, just bringing that level of consistency will go a long way uh towards helping him get to that next level. But for right now, I was thinking about this a lot like I think JDub might already be the best small forward in the NBA. I was looking at the rest of the list and every forward that I have ahead of him is either like a point forward, someone like Kade Cunningham or Luca Donuch or more of a power forward. LeBron James is a four, Palono is a four, Kevin Durant’s a four, Anthony Davis is a four. The only real like small forward that I have ranked ahead of him right now is Jimmy Butler. And I kind of look at Jimmy Butler as almost more of a four than a three at this point because I think one of the important characteristics of the three is you need to be able to pick up the opposing ball handlers and guard them on the perimeter at a really high level at large volume. And Jimmy Butler when he was in his prime could do that. But now I view him as more of like a helpside, you know, uh kind of like team defender at this phase of his career. But technically I suppose you could call Jimmy Butler this small forward that I have ranked ahead of JDub. Certainly within the next, you know, 18 months, 24 months, JDub, I think, will have a strangle hold as the best like like real three, real small forward in the NBA. And what’s interesting about JDub or with Jimmy is like Jimmy essentially represents what I view as the older generation of JDub. He’s the guy that JDub reminds me the most of. And again, the only reason why I have Jimmy ahead of JDub right now is you guys know how much I value veteran experience in the postseason. And and I just generally lean on that sort of guy as a super valuable player to have on a team. Like I like I know it sounds crazy uh because we look at how how much consistency and production you get from these young athletes that are just there every single night, but like I believe if you like swapped Jimmy and JDub for just this season that the Thunder would actually be a better basketball team just for this season. But in the big picture, I view JDub as the best small forward in the NBA as we look forward into the next era of NBA basketball. currently sits at number 20 on this list.

Jason breaks down why he has Oklahoma City Thunder wing Jalen Williams as the 20th best player in the NBA and why the OKC rising star already might be the best small forward in the league.

Follow Jason Timpf on social:
Tweets by _JasonLT
https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/

Follow us on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/hoopstonight/
https://x.com/hoopstonite
https://www.facebook.com/hoopstonight/

@hoopstonightjasontimpf

Learn more about the Volume:
https://www.thevolume.com

GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY).

Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD).

21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS).1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $150 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 3/16/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK.

#nba #nbaplayoffs #nbafinals #nbahighlights #nbabasketball #basketball #sports #reaction #rank #ranked #ranking #oklahomacitythunder #okcthunder #jalenwilliams #shaigilgeousalexander