Jalen Williams Reveals Behind the Victory: Injections and Sacrifice for the Championship
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s star forward, Jalen Williams, shared details about his effort to lead his team to victory in the most recent championship. Williams revealed that he received nearly 30 pain injections in his injured right wrist during the season. In a video posted on his YouTube channel, Williams explained that he had been dealing with a sprain in his right wrist for much of the season. The situation worsened when he felt his right scapholunate ligament tear, describing his hand as “on fire” after an incident with Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns on April 9.During the following 11 weeks, as the Thunder advanced and won the title, the team’s training staff used various bandaging techniques, many of them hidden under a sleeve on the arm, to control the injury. Williams recounted that he received lidocaine injections before each game and several times just for practice. The number of injections was such that he developed a callus at the injection site.
Williams underwent surgery to correct the injury last week.The player was inspired by the memory of Kobe Bryant and his well-known history of playing despite injuries. In addition, he had to modify his shooting form to keep the ball more on his fingertips and not rely so much on his wrist. This led him to go through several bumps in his performance during the postseason, with the series against the Denver Nuggets being where he had the most problems, aggravating the injury on several occasions. After a difficult performance in the second round last year, Williams commented that it was hard to hear the criticism about his performance and remain silent about the severity of the injury so as not to give an advantage to the opponents.“I received 28 or 29 injections in my hand during the playoffs,” Williams said in the video. “And I thought ‘this can’t be in vain, we have to win.’ That was my mentality.”
Jalen Williams
Williams had crucial performances during the Thunder’s career, including a 40-point game in Game 5 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers, which gave the Thunder a vital 3-2 lead. He also scored 34 points in Minnesota in a crucial Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.“I didn’t want to tell the world I was injured, and then the world jumped on me for not being prepared for the moment. Which is obviously incorrect now,” Williams said. “But that was the most annoying thing, because human nature leads you to want to shout that you’re injured. But I was able to focus and not use that as an excuse.”
Jalen Williams
Thunder President Sam Presti praised Williams after the Finals for playing through pain and never using it as an excuse.“We won a championship, now you can say whatever you want,” Williams said. “I’ll be getting measured for my ring soon.”
Jalen Williams
“He overcame it. He demonstrated incredible mental toughness and self-assurance,” said Presti. “I really thought it was impressive that he kept going without excuses and, obviously, played his best basketball at the end of the season.”
Sam Presti
