Jalen Williams scratched his chin, looked at the ceiling and sighed. He was reluctant to entertain the hypothetical.
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“How big a difference do you feel like you could’ve made if you had not only been in this series the whole time, but felt like your complete self?”
The Thunder’s Game 7 loss to the Spurs in the Western Conference finals — a game Williams didn’t play in due to a recurring hamstring injury — was less than 24 hours old. Williams, the Thunder’s second-or third-best player depending on your taste, had played a grand total of 55 minutes in the series, and he had only looked like himself for 45 of those. J-Dub gave it a go in Game 6, playing 10 minutes off the bench, but his physical powers had been zapped. The guy could barely move.
But what if his hamstring(s) had held up?
“To humor your question,” Williams said Sunday in his exit interview, “obviously I think I could have made an impact. I think we could have won if I played. Went to seven (games) with them without me playing. I don’t think I make us worse.”
Then he tipped his cap to the Spurs … yada, yada, yada.
I happen to agree with Williams, whose case was based on simple logic. Williams makes the Thunder better. The Thunder almost beat the Spurs largely without Williams. The 25-year-old who made third-team All-NBA a year ago only played in one full game — a game the Thunder lost, to be fair. But no one thinks the Dub-less version of the Thunder is a more dangerous playoff team.
And I’ll go a step further. I think the Thunder could have and should have beaten the Spurs without Jalen Williams. IF … that is, OKC had a healthy Ajay Mitchell. The Thunder didn’t need both of its secondary and tertiary offensive engines to survive San Antonio, but it did need one of them to ease the burden on SGA. And even then, it almost didn’t.
Still, the Thunder almost won.
Which brings us to the Giannis of it all. No, the Thunder isn’t going to trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
And the Chet of it all. No, the Thunder isn’t going to trade away Chet Holmgren.
Anyone who suggests otherwise has a severe case of short-sightedness. And anyone who thinks the Thunder would even consider such ideas hasn’t been paying attention.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti is bold. Remember the Paul George trades? But he’s not impulsive. And he sure the heck isn’t going to take a wrecking ball to his precious creation at the sign of the first crack. Especially when bad luck is mostly to blame.
Which, ironically enough, injury luck seemed to be on the Thunder’s side given the early-series concerns about Spurs guards De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper. But then Fox and Harper were good to go only for Williams and Mitchell to suffer debilitating injuries.
Speaking of injuries, Giannis is a top-five player in the world when healthy, but that’s the catch. He’s a 31-year-old forward whose game is predicated on physicality, and who hasn’t been able to stay healthy in the playoffs. Including J-Dub in a Giannis trade is a non-starter. Williams is 25. Are his hamstring injuries really going to be a chronic issue? Even so, how does getting older and more expensive make sense for the Thunder?
OK, what about Holmgren, though? His aversion to doing anything offensively against the Spurs was jarring. That he cowered when the Thunder needed him the most — when it was without Williams and Mitchell — was especially concerning. It would’ve been asking too much of Holmgren to create offense in the absence of the guards, but how about catching the ball cleanly and shooting open 3-pointers? I thought Holmgren, an All-NBA player in the regular season, was the Thunder’s playoff MVP through the first two rounds. And then the Spurs series happened. Whatever ailed him, it’s way more than a Victor Wembanyama problem.
But here’s the truth: Without Jalen Williams, without Ajay Mitchell and with the worst version of Chet Holmgren we’ve ever seen, the Thunder trailed by three points heading into the fourth quarter of Game 7.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was masterful in Game 7. But the Thunder got to a Game 7 despite a “C-” series from its MVP — my grade, not his. Maybe it’s not fair to judge him so harshly given how little help he received, and how terrifying that Spurs defense is, but that’s part of being a superstar. SGA needed an efficient Game 7 to crack 40% shooting for the series.
Gilgeous-Alexander said he didn’t have a hard conversation with Holmgren after the series.
“I also don’t feel like I need to,” SGA said. “I didn’t perform my greatest this series either. Chet won’t come to me with a development plan for the summer, you know what I mean?”
Then SGA repeated something he’s said at least a dozen times about Holmgren.
“The version of Chet that we have today is the worst version of Chet from now on,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He’s going to get better at basketball. He’s just going to be a better player because of the makeup he (has), the talent he has. I don’t need to advise Chet. He’ll figure it out.”
It might be time to retire the “worst version of Chet” line. I get what SGA is saying. Holmgren just turned 24. He’s going to improve. But we also shouldn’t act like Holmgren is still a project. He made third-team All-NBA and was the second best defender in the world this side of Wembanyama. Holmgren was a top-three player on an NBA title team.
But he has to be better. Especially if the Thunder has to play the Spurs year after year.
Agreed. To an extent.
Because here’s another hypothetical: What if the Thunder had a healthy Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell and still got the same disappointing version of Chet? What if it had Jalen Williams OR Ajay Mitchell and still got this version of Chet?
Would the Thunder have won the series? I’d answer yes and yes. Will the Thunder need Holmgren to play better against the Spurs in the future even if OKC is at full health? Yeah, because just as the Thunder is young and still improving, the Spurs are even younger with even more improvement to come.
The Spurs absolutely deserve to be in the NBA Finals. They also benefited from injury luck along the way. Just as the Thunder benefited from injury luck last year on its way to the title.
The Thunder has a championship core of SGA, J-Dub and Chet — three players set to enter their age 28, 25 and 24 seasons. Each of them have already inked long-term contract extensions that will kick in next season for J-Dub and Chet and two seasons from now for SGA.
The bill is coming. As is a new arena, practically gifted by the city to the team with the expectation that Clay Bennett and his ownership group will pay to keep the Thunder’s stars in place.
Moves, some big, will have to be made. That starts this offseason, when the Thunder will negotiate with two starters in Lu Dort and Isaiah Hartenstein — both of whom have team options for next season.
Presti planned for the moment when the primes of Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Holmgren would overlap. That’s yet to happen, by the way, and the Thunder already has one championship and was one win away from playing for another.
A seismic move like acquiring Antetokounmpo or shopping Holmgren would disrupt the Thunder’s chemistry, competitive timeline and financial flexibility. And doing so after a season in which untimely injuries, more than anything else, derailed a team that we were just referring to as a potential dynasty would be the most un-Presti like move imaginable.
Now that’s a hypothetical not worth entertaining.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at [email protected]. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Why OKC Thunder isn't trading for Giannis or trading Chet Holmgren