AJ

Jalen Williams got a needle in his wrist before every single playoff game for two months, kept it quiet, and won Oklahoma City a championship. Tonight, three games into the comeback, he got wheeled off on a stretcher while Shai hid his face in his jersey. The wrist went on April 9, 2025, in a regular season game against Phoenix. He tore the ligament that holds two of the small bones in his wrist together, and he said it sounded like paper ripping. He put off surgery and decided to play through it, which meant figuring out how to shoot a basketball with a wrist that felt like it was on fire. A normal jump shot ends with your wrist snapping forward, every single time. So right before the playoffs, he rebuilt his shot to come off his fingertips with barely any follow-through. The tape stayed hidden under his shooting sleeve. By his count he took 28 or 29 shots in that wrist over the playoffs, a numbing shot before every game. He played all 23 games. There was a stretch against Denver where he went 10 for 43 and got killed for it by people who had no idea what was going on. He answered with 24 in Game 7 of that series, then 40 in Game 5 of the Finals, and OKC won it all in seven. Then it all caught up with him. Surgery a week after the parade. A second procedure to pull a screw out of the wrist, which pushed his return back. Then a hamstring that kept going on him. He missed 49 games last season, played in only 5 of OKC's 15 playoff games, and watched the Thunder lose the West finals to San Antonio in seven. So this season was the do-over. It's the first year of the five-year deal worth up to $287 million he signed in July 2025, which is a lot of money for a kid who left high school in Gilbert, Arizona, with three Division I offers and ended up at Santa Clara. He had 8 points, 5 assists and 2 steals tonight when he drove with 1:14 left, got fouled, and came down on his left leg. The training staff had a towel over it within seconds. They called for the stretcher almost right away, the game stopped for about five minutes, and guys on both teams just stood there in shock. Shai went to the line and shot the free throws for him. After the game he tried to talk about it on TV and only got as far as "Just feel bad for him. Nothing more than that." There's no word yet on what it is. Daigneault said the team gets briefed tomorrow morning, and that they're not doing great. On his way out, in an air cast, he turned to the crowd and gave them two thumbs up while the whole building chanted J-Dub. Same guy who took a needle before every playoff game and never said a word, still trying to make everybody else feel better on the way out.