The Oklahoma City Thunder’s win on opening night of the new NBA season was a reminder of everything that makes the league’s 2025 champion a prime contender to win again.
Barely one week later, those aspirations have already been damaged.
Thunder star Jalen Williams, the team’s second-leading scorer and best all-around defender during its title run two seasons ago, fractured a fibula and dislocated his left ankle in a gruesome injury Sunday. The same night, Cason Wallace, a hounding defender and accurate shooter in his own right, tore the labrum in his shoulder.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti didn’t specify how long both will miss, but they are expected to miss months, at a minimum, putting their availability for any playoff run — especially a deep one — in serious doubt. Jeff Stotts, an athletic trainer who runs a site that tracks sports injuries, wrote that since 2005, just one player had sustained a torn labrum like Wallace’s and returned later that season.
“We’ll get them back, we’ll get them healthy, but we got a lot of basketball to play in front of us,” Presti said Monday. “We got to put it together, figure out what the next steps are, because this is part of the business that we’re in.”
Getting Williams back healthy had been central to Oklahoma City’s goal of returning to the NBA Finals. Injuries sidelined Williams for more than half of last season, and he also missed time during last season’s Western Conference finals, which the Thunder lost in seven games to San Antonio.
When San Antonio and Oklahoma City met on opening night, with Oklahoma City winning on the road, it was widely seen as a preview of the spring, when the two teams with loaded rosters featuring superstars still in their 20s were expected again to face off for the right to make the Finals.
“It’s obviously going to be tough without a player” like Williams, Thunder guard and two-time league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But he’s not gone forever. He’ll be back better than ever, and we know it. We’ve just got to hold the fort down until he comes back.”
The Thunder aren’t the only team whose season has already been upended by injuries. Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star guard Anthony Edwards is expected to miss around two months after his right knee required an arthroscopic procedure, ESPN reported. A right knee injury will also sideline Utah Jazz star forward Jaren Jackson Jr. for a reported six to eight weeks, while an ankle injury will sideline Orlando Magic star Paolo Banchero at least a month. Indiana Pacers All-Star Tyrese Haliburton (hamstring) and Orlando guard Jalen Suggs (right knee) also will miss time.
Drawing a connection between some of the acute injuries, like Williams’ freak fracture, and cumulative injuries such as the knee that has bothered Edwards for months is difficult, said Dr. Tarek Souryal, a former president of the NBA Physicians Association who was the Dallas Mavericks’ team doctor for more than two decades.
“What you’re witnessing is most likely a statistical aberration, not necessarily evidence of a systemic problem,” Souryal said. “A cluster of injuries, however unusual or alarming, does not by itself establish a causal relationship.”
Wallace and Williams are homegrown talents, drafted and developed by Oklahoma City into centerpieces of the 2025 championship team. The Thunder, under Presti, drafted and traded so well that their depth was often unparalleled around the NBA, with capable emerging contributors backing up more established starters.
The current collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players union, however, makes it financially difficult for a team to keep together a core of players for longer than a few seasons once they get old enough, and perform well enough, to command lucrative long-term extensions.
