‘This guy’s got a real shot’: Jalen Williams’ journey from mid-major to NBA Finals

OKLAHOMA CITY – Jalen Devonn Williams is well-known in these parts by the nickname, “J-Dub” or “Dub.” The Oklahoma City Thunder forward’s nickname originated from his mother, who called him that as a shortened version of his first and middle name. With another Jaylen “J-Will” Williams on the Thunder’s roster, the nicknames also help with confusion when coaches and teammates are talking about them.

But back at Santa Clara University, where J-Dub first made his name, men’s basketball head coach Herb Sendek calls Williams another cool nickname.

“Instead of calling him J-Dub, I started calling him J-Drip. I call him J-Drip because he never disappointed [in style],” Sendek told Andscape.

Williams is a 2025 NBA All-Star and one of the marquee players on the Thunder as they make their first NBA Finals appearance since 2012. But unlike most of his teammates, including 2025 NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who starred in college at Kentucky, Williams had a more challenging path to the NBA coming from a mid-major college after being lightly recruited in high school.

Before the Thunder play in Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight against the Indiana Pacers (ABC, 8:30 p.m. ET), Williams has taken time to reflect on his less-traveled road from Santa Clara to the NBA Finals.

“It means everything,” said Williams about playing in the NBA Finals. “Growing up, watching it, watching my favorite players playing it, and now I have an opportunity to do something special is something I can’t take for granted. This week allows me to reflect on a little bit. Yeah, it is special, man.

“There’s really no other words for it. It’s something you never know when you’ll be back. You never know if you’ll ever get there. There are a lot of great players that don’t get an opportunity to do what I’m about to do.”

Williams was born in Denver on April 14, 2001, and his family moved to the Phoenix-area when he was about 7. His parents, Ronald and Nicole Williams, are U.S. Air Force veterans who met while playing basketball at the academy and served 24 and 12 years, respectfully, in the Air Force.

As Jalen Williams started to grow in the sport, his parents planted dreams about him playing in the NBA one day.

“I would say my parents were big on if I wanted to get to the NBA, I could,” Williams said. “From when I was young, I knew what I wanted to do, so I always had a good support system in regard to that. There was never a time that I didn’t think I could.”

Williams was 5-foot-11, skinny and gangly with big feet when he entered Perry High School in Gilbert, Arizona. But he grew 5 inches between his sophomore and senior season. He was 6-3 when he averaged 25 points per game during his senior year during the 2018-19 season and stands 6-5 now. The 2019 Chandler Unified School District Player of the Year was not ranked among the nation’s top boys’ basketball players by ESPN. The three-star recruit was the ninth-ranked basketball player in Arizona in 2019, according to 247Sports.

Sendek and his Santa Clara staff became enamored with Williams after watching him on the AAU circuit during his sophomore year in high school. Santa Clara was one of the few colleges that showed serious interest. Sendek loved Williams’ potential and would later learn to love his family background as well.

“Just early on he had a great feel for the game,” Sendek said. “He had a tremendous basketball IQ. He knew how to play and he had a really advanced skillset. And then you would look at him and maybe do a double take. He was just this gangly kid who, there’s never a guarantee, but you looked at him at that stage and said, ‘You know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy really grows.’ And so, as that did actually happen and it was able to compliment his other attributes, things started to really come together for him…

“We identified him as a guy to keep an eye on that potentially could be a good fit for our program. From that point on, we had eyes on him and followed him very closely until probably about a year after that where we really swung into full recruiting mode with him.”

On why he wasn’t heavily recruited, Williams said: “Just being 5-11 with a 6-11 wingspan and size 14 [shoe] I wasn’t really athletic. Basketball comes with politics and I understood that. There were a lot of other guys that at the time that recruiters thought should get pushed. And I just used it as fuel and motivation to get better and just keep doing what I was doing.”

Sendek once took a recruiting visit to Williams’ high school and noticed that the recruit was wearing white rim sunglasses and had a unique fashion sense. So, to help connect with the teenager, Sendek wore similar glasses on his next visit to the high school. And that was where the “J-Drip” nickname was born.

As Williams continued his strong fashion sense at Santa Clara, J-Drip stuck more with Sendek.

“We had a lot of fun banter and continue to do so through the years because he is that guy,” Sendek said. “He’s flamboyant. He is fun-loving. So, the next time we were together, I made sure that I was rocking those same sunglasses and he always got a kick out of that.

“Last year, he went to Paris for the fashion show and he’s always had that flamboyance, that love of fashion, and he loves to needle you and you can needle him. And he’s easy to smile, quick to laugh, and really to this day – despite all of his success – he’s just a regular guy. He treats everybody with respect and kindness.”

Williams respected that Sendek not only took the time to come visit him at his high school, but also did it in the summer in Phoenix when it was more than 100 degrees. He said those visits and effort helped him bond with Sendek and meant a lot since he wasn’t heavily recruited.

“He really spilled the beans on the stories,” Williams said with a laugh. “I’ll probably never forget that in my lifetime. Just looking back at it, the more that I hear that story [about the sunglasses], the more we laugh about it. It just kind of shows that he was willing to meet me halfway, if that makes sense. He was just going to allow me to be me. And then at the same time, he was willing to have fun with me and be approachable.

“When you have a bond with your coach, it just allows you to play more free. And it just kind of showed that he was here with me as long as I’m here with him.”

So, does Williams like J-Drip over J-Dub?

“No. I hope that doesn’t stick anywhere,” Williams said. “But [Sendek] calls me J-Drip all the time.”

Sendek’s visits to Phoenix combined with the “genuine connection” and “fun” Williams had on his visit to Santa Clara had a strong impact. Williams had no Power 5 scholarship offers, so he opted to sign with Santa Clara, where he was comfortable and closer to home rather than mid-major Hofstra in Hempstead, New York.

“Hofstra recruited me. They did a good job. But Santa Clara was big for me,” Williams said.

Williams averaged 7.7 points as a freshman at Santa Clara during the 2019-2020 season. During his sophomore season, he and his Broncos teammates were challenged by having to train and play games in nearby Santa Cruz, California, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Santa Clara, a private Jesuit university, had an NBA alumni list of 13 at that time, led by two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash and former Los Angeles Lakers forward Kurt Rambis.

But with growth in Williams’ game during the 2020-21 season, Sendek and his staff started seeing NBA potential.

“There were times where we would be sitting together as a staff and saying, ‘This guy’s got a real shot,’ ” Sendek said. “And then who knows what would’ve happened had he not had to go through those circumstances his second year. So, then he comes back, obviously for his third year. And then I would say immediately right away, early in the season, it was obvious to us every day in practice and in the games that we had a guy that was going to play in the NBA someday.”

Williams said it was during that sophomore year that he began truly believing that the NBA was possible.

“Obviously, COVID happened. I had a couple injuries here and there. But mainly during COVID, that summer [going into sophomore year] I was really good,” Williams said.

Pacers lead assistant coach Lloyd Pierce was a defensive standout at Santa Clara who shared the backcourt with Nash. While watching Santa Clara, Pierce began noticing Williams’ NBA potential during his sophomore year, too.

“I always watch Santa Clara from afar and you watch one or two games during the year and you say, ‘Man, that’s a pretty good player,’ ” Pierce told Andscape. “He’s 6-7 and they got him playing point [guard] at Santa Clara, which is kind of unheard of at that level. You see the doses of athleticism, you see the shooting, you see the passing.”

Williams was ranked as a late second-round NBA prospect entering his junior season, but scouts were paying attention. The 2022 All-West Coast Conference selection averaged 18 points and 4.1 rebounds, including 41% from 3-point range during his junior season in 2021-22. He entered his name in the 2022 NBA draft with one year of eligibility remaining on March 31, 2022, while leaving room to return to school.

Williams signed with Nash’s old agent, Bill Duffy, who also played at Santa Clara. While Williams was quietly confident that he would leave his name in the draft, Duffy quickly felt the same after a training workout in Santa Barbara. Williams’ stellar play later during the NBA Pre-Draft Camp helped his stock skyrocket after showing a complete skillset on both ends of the floor.

“He was testing the waters and he came out to Santa Barbara,” said Duffy, who co-represents Williams with agent Justin Haynes. “We went out there to watch him train and within five minutes, Packie Turner, our trainer, walked over to us and said, ‘I don’t think he’s going back to school.’ ”

The Thunder selected Williams with the 12th overall pick in the 2022 NBA draft. He was the first Santa Clara player drafted since Nash in 1996. Sendek said Williams getting drafted played a role in Santa Clara landing Golden State Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski in 2022 from the transfer portal.

Williams made a name for himself quickly, making the All-NBA Rookie first team. In his third season, he vaulted himself into the league’s elite, making his first All-Star appearance in San Francisco this year down the road from Santa Clara. Williams averaged 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.1 assists this season for the Thunder.

“Dub has been a special talent since he’s been here,” Thunder guard Luguentz Dort said. “He has always been about the work and the trust of the team, and he is always getting better and developing. To become the player he is now, I’m glad I got to see that.”

Warriors guard Stephen Curry has said that he didn’t think he would have developed into the star he is today if he didn’t play at mid-major Davidson. Williams echoed those thoughts.

Williams has a bittersweet view when he reflects on his journey, but one silver lining was it made it easier for his younger brother, Cody, to be identified as an NBA prospect in high school. Cody Williams played at Colorado for a season before being drafted ninth overall by the Utah Jazz in 2024.

“Some parts of it make me angry. Other parts make me sad,” Williams said. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate everything that happened and I look back and believe that if it didn’t happen that way, I don’t think I would be in the position I was. So, in a way, honestly, it just makes me feel kind of relieved and happy that was the way it went. I remember a lot of times I would work out because something went wrong or I didn’t get picked for something I thought I should get picked for. It made me go to the gym. It made me take it way more seriously.

“So, I thank God a lot for the opportunities that I got or the opportunities I didn’t get in order to push through. It makes me a little bit emotional. I think what makes me most emotional is probably just for a lot of my hard work, Cody doesn’t have to go through it. He was able to just get recruited the right way and obviously get to the NBA deservingly. A lot of that stems from just I think a lot of the struggles I had.”

Nash never won an NBA championship. Rambis won four NBA titles in the 1980s alongside Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with the Lakers. Other former Broncos to win NBA championships include Dennis Awtrey in 1979 with the Seattle SuperSonics and Mark McNamara in 1983 with the Philadelphia 76ers. Williams hopes to join that list of Santa Clara’s NBA champions.

Sendek wasn’t certain if his schedule will allow him to make it to the NBA Finals to see J-Drip play. Either way, Sendek said that he and Broncos students, alumni and fans will be rooting for Williams during the Finals.

“We’re obviously his biggest fans, his biggest cheerleaders,” Sendek said. “We watch him with a great deal of pride and obviously his notoriety has helped the university, helped our basketball program just being associated with him. The whole Santa Clara community just has a great sense of pride and watching what he’s accomplishing day in, day out right now.”