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Tim MacMahon
HE WAS A no-star recruit coming out of high school, landing at a small college before a sudden growth spurt. He didn’t register on NBA scouts’ radars until a couple of years later, as success didn’t come immediately even at that level, and then zoomed up the draft boards into the lottery late in the process.
This once unheralded prospect just kept getting better and better after arriving in the NBA, establishing himself as a do-it-all co-star, a perfect complement to an MVP who led the league in scoring. He earned his first All-Star appearance in his third season and hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy — for the first of several times — before hitting his prime.
It was a heck of a career path for Scottie Pippen, the Hall of Famer who won six titles as Michael Jordan’s superstar sidekick with the Chicago Bulls. More than a few decades later, Jalen Williams seems to be on a similar journey, a blossoming star thriving in the shadow of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have a chance to clinch their first championship in Thursday’s Game 6 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers in large part because of Williams’ performance in the series. The 6-foot-6 Williams has done everything from serving as the primary defender on Pacers star power forward Pascal Sakak to running point while his scoring total has increased in each game, rising to a playoff-career-high 40 points in the Thunder’s pivotal Game 5 win.
Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams have put themselves in that sort of company with their production in this series. They have combined for 291 points in the Finals. According to ESPN Research, the only duos to score more points through five games in a Finals are Jordan and Pippen in 1993, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in 2017 and Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant in 2017.
“He is pretty special,” Pippen told ESPN. “I’m enjoying watching him. I see a lot of me in him for sure. I see a guy rising to be one of the top players in this league. He’s definitely a player that is capable of being able to lead that franchise to multiple championships — him and Shai, of course.”
PIPPEN WAS IN the final years of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers by the time Williams, 24, was born. But Williams is enough of a basketball historian to be flattered by the comparison.
“I feel like a new-age Scottie maybe,” Williams told ESPN. “I’m not mad at that one at all. I like that. And then obviously Shai gets a little Jordan comparison, so that’s cool. It’s very cool. Any time you compared to somebody like that, you’re doing something right.”
Williams has done a lot of things right since arriving in Oklahoma City as the No. 12 pick in the 2022 draft, one of several selections the Thunder acquired from the The Clippers along with Gilgeous-Alexander in the Paul George trade that poured the foundation for a potential dynasty.
Williams made an instant impact, finishing as the Rookie of the Year runner-up, and has continued to develop rapidly as the Thunder made double-digit win jumps in each of his first three seasons. He earned his first All-Star selection along with a third-team All-NBA spot and second-team All-Defensive nod this season.
Pippen’s résumé features seven All-Star and All-NBA selections, 10 All-Defensive honors, the six championship rings, a Hall of Fame induction and a spot on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. It’s extraordinarily high praise to put Williams in the same sentence at this point.
But Pippen doesn’t want to limit Williams to that particular comparison, pointing out that Williams’ potential is even higher because of his scoring ability in this pace-and-space era of the NBA. Williams averaged 21.6 points per game this season — more than Pippen averaged in all but one season of his career, which was 1993-94, when Jordan was on his retirement sabbatical.
“I don’t even want to put a cap on him to say that he’s going to be me,” Pippen said. “I see him being greater, if I can say that. Just because of where the game is today. They have offensive freedom. We didn’t have that. We mostly ran out of a system. These guys have the freedom to shoot 3-balls and things of that nature. Players that are playing in today’s game have a chance to be better than players in the past because of the ability to shoot the ball.
“If this kid continues to shoot the 3-ball the way that he shoots it, I’m not going to sit here and argue with nobody and say that you can compare us. Because you can’t. He wins.”
Williams proudly smirked as the media inquired about his progress as a playmaker in the wake of the Thunder’s Game 4 road win.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault had used Williams as a point forward in that game, having him serve as Oklahoma City’s primary offensive initiator to ease the burden on Gilgeous-Alexander against the Pacers’ relentless, full-court defense. Williams, the second-youngest player in the league this season to average at least 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists per game, rose to the challenge. He scored 27 points, keeping the Thunder within striking distance, and set the table for Gilgeous-Alexander’s clutch brilliance as they beautifully executed the two-man game down the stretch of Oklahoma City’s comeback win.
It amused Williams that his performance in a point role could be considered a surprise.
“Well, I grew up short,” Williams said. “So I’ve always been a point guard.”
Williams insisted that the toughest adjustment he had to make in basketball was learning to play on the wing during his first couple of years at Santa Clara. He had sprouted four inches since his high school graduation, his second growth spurt in that range over the span of a few years. He didn’t register as a draft prospect until assuming a point forward role as a college junior, when he averaged 18.0 points and 4.2 assists per game, and then his stock shot up after an impressive showing at the NBA combine.
“I had all the guard skills,” Williams said. “Then when I grew, thank God they didn’t really go anywhere.”
Pippen had a similar ascent at Central Arkansas, where he stayed all four years before going fifth overall in the 1987 draft. Bulls general manager Jerry Krause bet on the talent of a rangy wing with ballhandling skills, floor vision and a 7-3 wing span.
Thunder GM Sam Presti had similar intrigue with Williams, who has a 7-2 wing span, a physical attribute that helped him fill in as Oklahoma City’s starting center during a stretch of the regular season when 7-footers Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein were injured. As versatile and impactful as Williams is defensively, his development with the ball in his hands has fueled his ascension into a star.
“When he started with us, and this has been our approach with most players, it’s not like we just hand them the ball,” Daigneault said. “We put them in the system first, and the guys that are really efficient in the system, they end up banging the door down and show you that they need more. He was in that category.
“We weren’t pushing every button for him, but he just kept showing the ability to take more of a load. His efficiency was not dropping off, and his impact wasn’t dropping off. If anything, it was increasing. Usually when those guys are doing that, they are declaring themselves, and he certainly declared himself.
“Now he is learning all the lessons to be learned in that role.”
WILLIAMS CREDITS THE Thunder’s culture for allowing him to cultivate his game while impacting winning. He isn’t focused on only his individual development, but Williams has worked to grow his game in ways that complement Gilgeous-Alexander, and benefit from the attention paid to the MVP.
As Oklahoma City fans know all too well, a collection of young stars does not guarantee future championship parades. The Thunder’s 2012 Finals team featured three future MVPs — Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden — and never returned to this stage.
But the circumstances surrounding the star trios from the two Oklahoma City’s Finals teams are starkly different. Harden, the Sixth Man of the Year then, wanted a leading role and a maximum contract and got both when he was traded to the Houston Rockets before the next season. Durant and Westbrook won a lot of games together, but they didn’t enhance each other’s games the way that Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams do.
There’s a clear pecking order for the Thunder now, and that’s fine with Williams and Holmgren, who rival executives around the league assume will agree to lucrative contract extensions this offseason.
“It’s very easy when you have a team that likes to do their role,” Williams said. “And I’m not saying that guys can’t branch out, but just when everybody kind of accepts that role for the better of their team … I know mine. When you just have guys that are willing to do that, it allows everybody to grow and get better.
“I’ve had that, and I think what I got good at was understanding how Shai likes to play and being able to patch my game into something that complements him a lot more and can take the load off of him. A lot of it is self-awareness and at the same time willingness. I don’t think everybody’s willing to sacrifice parts of their game to do that. And he does the same thing. He’ll sacrifice parts of his game to make the team better. He can come down and shoot every ball and I’d slap him on the butt and say, ‘Good shot.’ So for him to be able to trust us, too, goes a long way.”
Williams has boosted his scoring total in each of his three seasons, going from 14.1 points per game as a rookie to 19.1 in his second season and 21.6 this season. His assists totals — 3.3, 4.5, 5.1 — have also increased each season.
“‘Dub’ has made tremendous strides,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He is one of the biggest reasons why we’re here. Him being able to shoulder what he does every night on both ends of the floor takes a lot of pressure off everyone else around him, including myself. He is a gamer. He is a winner. But he continues to get better in every situation. He is a Swiss Army knife, and he’s only getting better with every game he plays. I’m excited to see where he ends up.”
Pippen had that same sort of steady, significant improvement as the Bulls built toward becoming a dynasty that hung six championship banners in eight seasons. He increased his scoring and assists averages each year through the first five seasons of his career. And he warns that Williams should be expected to keep making large strides.
“When guys go through journeys like that, watch out because the sky’s the limit,” Pippen said. “He is going to be a great player because he still feels unwanted. He’s still got that chip on his shoulder that, ‘They don’t know what they missed out on.’
“It’s nothing you get rid of. It’s a part of you. It’s instilled in you for life. He’s making people think now that passed him up. In the future, you will see that he’ll continue to just get better. He’s going to always keep his knife sharp.”
