Thunder's Jalen Williams Using 'Rookie Stride' To Set the Tone to Finish Season
While the Oklahoma City Thunder have made their way – to an extent – back to competing, they’ve done so while maintaining the second youngest team in NBA history. That is, of course, second to only themselves just one season ago.
In doing so, the Thunder entered the All-Star break as the tenth seed in the Western Conference, which would give them the final Play-In spot if the season ended today.
With the All-Star Game and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s nine minutes out of the way, the focus is back on the regular season. The Thunder return to action in Utah once again, where three Thunder’s spent some time for All-Star weekend this past weekend.
This game, of course, could have some playoff implications. We’re nearing the stretch of the season where each win or loss has much more of an impact in the standings, and it feels amplified this season. The Western Conference is so tight that the Thunder could realistically finish as the 13th or sixth seed. And those two could be within a few games of each other.
So, heading into the second part of the NBA season, there is much less margin for error.
Recently, Mark Daigneault mentioned that Jalen Williams was hitting a “rookie stride” rather than a rookie wall, which many first year players face.
Williams hitting his rookie stride could be something the entire team could build off of to finish the regular season strong. If every player embodies that mindset and picks up each other's slack, they could be looking at a playoff berth much earlier than anyone would have expected.
“I think the whole team has a chip on their shoulder where everybody, towards the beginning of the year, was resting their best players and not playing everybody against us,” Williams told Hoops Hype’s Michael Scotto.
“Sam (Presti) came to us earlier in the year and said, ‘When we make it, we don’t want to just make it, and it looks like an accident. We want to actually make some noise in the playoffs.’ I think that’s what we’re trying to do,” Williams continued.
As a rookie, Williams perfectly embodies what the Thunder need to do to finish off the season strong and find their way into postseason play. By emulating his rookie stride, the Thunder could shock some people. Especially since their post All-Star break schedule ranks as the fifth easiest of all the league.
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