The Oklahoma City Thunder suffered a catastrophic blow with the injury of star Jalen Williams on Sunday night against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Williams suffered a gruesome injury to his left ankle late in the fourth quarter in their 108-101 victory over the Clippers.
With 1:14 remaining in the game, Williams drove to the basket for a dunk attempt and was met mid-air by Clippers defenders Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn. The contact caused him to lose his balance and land awkwardly, trapping his left leg underneath his body weight and causing his lower leg and ankle to bend severely in the wrong direction.
Sports Doctor Predicts Diagnosis For Jalen Williams
Sports doctor David Chao thinks the injury would be diagnosed as a left tibia and fibula fracture, considering the angulation and deformity.
Chao added that the season would likely be over for him after undergoing the surgery. Recovery will also not happen this year, he said.
The atmosphere inside the Paycom Center immediately turned somber as Williams’ star teammates Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren looked visibly distraught and shaken, while medical staff rushed to the court and covered Williams’ leg with towels.
Trainers placed his leg in an air cast and loaded him onto a stretcher to transport him out of the arena. While being wheeled off, Williams reassured the chanting crowd by raising two thumbs up.
The Thunder have not yet released an official diagnosis detailing the exact nature or severity of the damage.
According to the National Institutes of Health, recovering from a simultaneous fracture of the left tibia and fibula that presents with angulation and deformity typically takes 9 to 12 months to return to professional competition.
It said that because the tibia is the primary weight-bearing bone, the athlete will face a strict non-weight-bearing period for the first 6 to 12 weeks to allow early bone consolidation.
It cited data for professional basketball players, which indicated an average timeline of return to approximately 314 days, as the grueling process requires not just biological bone healing, but extensive neuromuscular rehabilitation to restore the vertical power, lateral agility, and cardiovascular endurance necessary for NBA-level play.
What Is The Thunder’s Immediate Plan After Jalen Williams Injury?
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault plans to regroup the guys as soon as they can, considering the magnitude of the situation.
“I think it starts with just getting everybody and regrouping in a situation like that, especially when it’s ugly like that, which is what we’ll focus on first before we move on to anything else,” he said.
“We’ll come in tomorrow, we’ll get everybody together and we’ll have more information for the team at that time. I know they’ll be hungry to know how he’s doing and stuff like that, and then we’ll move from there. But, at this point, you’ve just got to allow yourself to feel the way you do.”
Last season, Williams also suffered a series of injuries to his hamstrings, preventing him from being at his full self for most of the season.
Without Williams for most of the Western Conference Finals, they got dethroned by the San Antonio Spurs.
Now, they face the same reality after just three games in the regular season.
Sports Doctor Predicts Bad News For Thunder’s Jalen Williams Ankle