Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jalen Williams will undergo surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right wrist, Thunder executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti told reporters on Monday.
Williams, 24, is expected to be available for the start of the 2025-26 NBA regular season, Presti said.
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Presti discussed the injury as part of his end-of-season media availability on Monday morning, putting a bow on Oklahoma City’s first NBA championship — a title run that Williams completed, it turns out, while playing with an injury to his shooting hand.
The injury happened during a victory over the Phoenix Suns in the final week of the regular season, according to Thunder podcaster Andrew Schlecht. Williams finished that game with 33 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 2 turnovers in 36 minutes — a do-it-all performance emblematic of the all-around impact he had throughout a campaign that earned him the first All-Star, All-NBA and All-Defensive honors of his young career.
At times during postseason practice sessions and shootarounds, Williams could be seen wearing a brace on that ailing right wrist. He didn’t miss any time, though, and while his production at times waned — he shot under 40% from the field in nine of Oklahoma City’s 23 playoff games — he continued to shoulder a significant two-way burden for Mark Daigneault’s squad without complaint.
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“The part that I’m most impressed with is in our modern era, when someone has a poor performance, or they’re not playing to their capability in a game and there’s a lot of attention on it, you often see a little birdie make sure that everybody knows that the player is not 100%,” Presti said Monday. “Never happened with this guy. Not one time. He powered through. He showed incredible mental endurance and security in himself.”
Despite suffering the injury just before the start of the postseason, Williams shined throughout Oklahoma City’s playoff run, averaging 21.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.4 steals in 34.6 minutes per game as the Thunder won the Western Conference crown and outlasted the Indiana Pacers in seven hard-fought games in the 2025 NBA Finals.
With Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard draped all over MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Daigneault tossed Williams the keys to the Thunder offense midway through the series, entrusting him with bringing the ball up the floor against Indiana’s full-court pressure, initiating possessions and looking for opportunities to put his head down and get to the rim. In Game 5 of the Finals, with the series tied at 2-2, Williams responded by turning in the game of his life, scoring 40 points on 14-for-25 shooting with 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and just 1 turnover in 35 minutes to propel Oklahoma City to a 3-2 lead.
Not bad for a guy with a torn ligament in his shooting wrist.
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“Great force,” Daigneault said after Game 5. “I mean, that’s the word. We’ve used that word with him in his development. When he’s at his best, he’s playing with that type of force. … The way that you accomplish your goals and become the player you’re going to be is by improving. I credit him because in the face of [some ugly games earlier in the season], he just focused on improving.”
That improvement has landed Williams in some awfully lofty conversations — the name Scottie Pippen popped up quite a bit as the playoffs wore on — and in position, at age 24, to cap a year in which he broke through to all-league stardom and won an NBA championship by signing a lucrative extension of his rookie contract that could be worth as much as $296 million over five years.
Williams has firmly cemented himself as part of Oklahoma City’s championship core; now, he’ll get patched up and get himself ready for the exceedingly daunting task of trying to do it all over again.
“It’s a blur,” Williams said after Game 7. “I was just very, very blessed to be in this situation. A lot of that emotion definitely hit me a little bit. Like I said, there’s a lot of stuff that I don’t really speak on, like everybody in the [Thunder locker] room, so a lot of the emotions from that kind of hit me to push through. Coming from not being known in college, to three, four years later being an NBA champion, having an impact on a championship team is God’s gift for sure. So, it’s been really cool to get that.”
