By Fred Katz / The Athletic
Oklahoma City forward Jalen Williams’ new role emerged without any warning.
Williams, who is 6-foot-5, has defended larger players for years, but until recently, he appeared as your typical small forward. On Nov. 10, outside forces decided he would no longer be one.
That’s when the Thunder lost 7-footer Chet Holmgren to a pelvic fracture. Another 7-footer, Isaiah Hartenstein, was already sidelined. Without any conventional big men, the team replaced Holmgren on the first unit with 6-foot-5 Isaiah Joe. That meant an adjustment for Williams, the team’s new final line of defense.
In his new role, Williams battled the opposing center each night. He jumped center on the opening tipoff. Each leap was a little surprise, a reminder that a lifelong perimeter player was now down low with the big boys.
“I’m going to be shocked tonight when I do it,” Williams said before a game in November in San Antonio, where he guarded Zach Collins, a 7-footer. Two nights earlier, he had scrapped with a couple of mammoths in Dallas, the Mavericks’ Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II.
In reality, the Thunder’s do-everything player should not have been shocked, even if Williams’ size deviates from your usual center archetype. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault never actually told Williams — or any of his teammates, for that matter — that he would be the one to take jump balls. It was “assumed,” as Daigneault put it.
“Who else is going to do it?” the coach said.
And who else would be the team’s center for the six games that neither Holmgren nor Hartenstein could start?
The Thunder have trusted Williams to guard bigs since long before injuries forced them into it. He has guarded brawny scorers such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Zion Williamson or towers like Victor Wembanyama and Karl-Anthony Towns. Even when Holmgren was healthy, Oklahoma City would occasionally throw its shot-blocker on a nonshooter so he could roam as a free safety with Williams defending the other team’s center. Before Holmgren was in the picture, when the Thunder deployed a tinier roster and three not-so-imposing fives, Williams had to slide down a position or two.
“In my mind, it was just one of those things: Like, why wouldn’t I be able to do it?” Williams said. “And I just kind of keep getting the opportunity to do it.”
But this situation was new — 48 minutes of guarding centers up for grabs with no help from any giants in sight, a Williams fever dream.
As the wise philosopher Aaron Wiggins, who moonlights as a Thunder forward, put it: “Tonight, he’s a center. Tomorrow, who knows what he’ll be?”
Such is the way to survive in Oklahoma. No team and no defense can shapeshift the way the Thunder can. Just like Williams, Oklahoma City’s identity is that it has many.
Daigneault will flip through starting units or substitution patterns regularly. On one day, the Thunder will go small. On the next, they will be oversize. They toggle in and out of a zone defense or they switch with their assembly of multifaceted defenders or they move to other types of coverages.
With the centers present, they have at least one deterrent in the paint, someone to scare away any dribbler who dares approach the basket. They line the perimeter with ravenous guards and wings. They gobble up steals. Without either of the bigs, they are a cloud of gnats.
Now, Hartenstein’s fractured hand has healed. Oklahoma City’s biggest free-agent signing from the summer, Hartenstein returned to the starting lineup Nov. 25 and played his sixth game of the season Tuesday night, a 133-106 win against the Utah Jazz. He is averaging 13.3 points and 12.3 rebounds a game. Holmgren, a rim protector who will be out at least another five to seven weeks, has missed 11 games. Hartenstein, whose analytics graded him as one of the world’s most daunting paint defenders last season, missed 15.
The Thunder, who at 16-5 have the best record in the NBA’s Western Conference, do not defend quite like any other team — especially when Williams runs at center, which Daigneault calls “a muscle that if we do it effectively, which we’ve done to this point, will help us in the future.”
When the Thunder go small, all eyes focus on the paint. Williams mans a center. Luguentz Dort will take on the other team’s highest-usage perimeter player. Other stalwarts line the outside. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a master in passing lanes and has become one of the league’s better shot-blocking guards. Alex Caruso is a hound, as are Wiggins and Cason Wallace. Their goal is to make any ballhandler or screener uncomfortable. Daigneault talks about rhythm: The defense’s job is to break the offense’s.
Caruso will stunt at a dribbler, then recover back onto his man. When drivers reach the free-throw line, he has an uncanny ability to step toward them and swipe the basketball away. Williams and Dort do the same.
“Sometimes, it’s not even about stealing it,” Williams said. “It’s just about making somebody think you might steal it.”
The Thunder are lurking.
Once the ball hits the paint, arms swarm down low. They will send aggressive help from the weak side, sometimes the strong side, wherever they need. They will give up corner 3s when they are small, but they will not make any shot easy.
“Everybody is in there and fighting,” Dort said. “That’s all we can ask for.”
The Thunder, even without their rim protectors, protect the rim better than most teams.
At the beginning of a play, if the ballhandler is under duress, “it changes the rhythm of the play,” Daigneault said. He continued: “They’re not getting into their steps in a rhythmic way. And then it’s just competitiveness at the rim.”
Since Hartenstein entered the starting lineup, he has been a hit, reaching a double-double in four of his five starts so far. The Thunder now have a conventional center, which slides Williams to a more run-of-the-mill role, one to be expected from an efficient scoring and facilitating wing who would not normally exhaust himself wrestling people nearly a foot taller.
Once Holmgren returns (the Thunder say he will be back before the end of the season), Oklahoma City can play the two centers together. Holmgren shoots 3s and attacks closeouts off the dribble. Hartenstein is an expert screen-setter, passer and roller. They could operate alongside each other, especially for short stretches. In those moments, the Thunder will be massive.
Of course, that will not change who they are — because their identity is that they play however the situation dictates they should.
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