Jalen Williams Detailed How OKC Thunder Used Past Experiences to Win It All

For a long time, nobody truly believed in the Thunder. The team’s youth, lack of experience, and not enough star power was reason for disbelief. Even as the Thunder climbed the ranks during the regular season and took down great teams, the question still loomed about whether they could do it in the postseason.

During the 2023-24 season, the disbelief surrounding the team came to fruition, as Oklahoma City faltered in the postseason against a talented, veteran Dallas Mavericks team. But the progression that took place across the regular season and the experiences that the team went through proved to be the most pivotal thing to take place in the franchise’s existence. 

Jalen Williams, who saw the tail end of the rebuild, went on the Out The Mud podcast this week to talk about the Thunder’s rise to the top. It wasn’t always easy, but it was necessary for this team to grow.

“We have a good organization that’s willing to stick with it,” Williams said. “That’s the first part, like if the organization is pretty open with what’s going on, I feel like it just lets you kind of play. I wouldn’t even say our down (year) for me was bad, they had some bad years before I was there. But our year wasn’t that bad, we played in the play-in, we had a chance to go to the playoffs — which they didn’t really expect.

"Chet (Holmgren) comes in and now we're the first seed. That was more of the jump than kind of staying down. Everybody in the building was kind of shocked. We're beating teams that were beating us by 20 last year. Now we're beating them by 20. It was more of how do we hone this in and get the experience. It’s not like we’re fourth, fifth in the West fighting for a playoff spot. We're kinda like the hunted and nobody is taking us seriously. It was more of how do we mature faster in order to win.”