Jalen Williams: Team's Relationship 'Goes a Long Way'

The Oklahoma City Thunder have built a team upon a young core that thrives while rooting for each other.

The Oklahoma City Thunder has quickly become one of the most interesting teams in the league. From an on-court standpoint, the play style is one that doesn't suit any other roster and is done so with one of the youngest teams in the league.

One of the so-called "core four" of the team's young core is sophomore forward Jalen Williams. At 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot-2 wingspan, Williams plays perfectly into the team's five-out offense that oftentimes sees a smaller player playing the center position.

Williams recently joined Shams Charania on Stadium to discuss a variety of things, one of those being his team. 

“I think we’re a really deep team. We’re also really close," Williams said on the show. "When you have those two things where everyone’s happy for everybody to succeed, I think that goes a long way.”

A similar tune has been sung by other members of the Thunder's young core, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren. If key voices on the team are echoing something, it's likely to be true and understood among the squad. 

While the foundations for the future of the Thunder and the core moving forward is being laid, there seem to be principles that contribute to the team's success. 

Playing with a certain level of trust and joy allows each and every player to thrive in a system that gives many chances. This also helped Williams, who appeared in 75 games in his rookie season. He started in 62 of those, and he earned his starting role early. Again, the system in which the Thunder play is great for gaining opportunity, and Williams more than capitalized on it.

The former No. 12 pick averaged 14.1 points per game on 52 percent shooting in 30 minutes per game. He, along with his young team, was able to make a statement over the course of the season and is looking no other way but up. 

It's hard to imagine that if the team wasn't as selfless as they are, which allows buy-in to a system laid out by head coach Mark Daigneault, that Williams wouldn't -- along with the team -- wouldn't have been able to find the level of success they did so quickly.

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