Oklahoma City Thunder star forward Jalen Williams said he took nearly 30 painkilling injections in his injured right wrist to get through his team's recent championship run.
In a video posted to his YouTube page on Tuesday, Williams said he had been dealing with a sprained right wrist for much of the season. Then he felt his right scapholunate ligament tear and his hand was "on fire" after getting tied up with Phoenix Suns' star guard Devin Booker while chasing a loose ball on April 9.
Over the next 11 weeks as the Thunder won four series to claim the NBA title, the team's training staff used various and elaborate taping techniques, most of them hidden under an arm sleeve, to manage the injury. Williams said he received lidocaine injections in his wrist before each game and several times just to practice. He also had multiple cortisone shots. He took so many needles, he said, he developed a callous at the injection site.
Williams had surgery to correct the injury last week.
"I got 28 or 29 shots in my hand throughout the playoffs," Williams said on the video. "And I was like, 'That can't be for nothing. We have to win.' So, that was my mentality."
Williams, who said he used the memory of Kobe Bryant and his well-known history of playing through injuries as motivation, had to change his jump shot form to keep the ball more on his fingertips so he didn't have to rely on his wrist as much. He went through several shooting slumps in the postseason while managing the injury and said he experienced the most issues against the Denver Nuggets in the second round, when he aggravated the injury several times. He shot only 38% during that series and 23% on 3-pointers and went just 10-of-43 shooting in Games 4 to 6.
After he struggled in a series loss in last year's second round, Williams said it was hard to hear criticism of his performance and stay silent about the extent of the wrist injury so as not to tip off opponents.
"I didn't want to tell the world that I was hurt, and so the world just ganged up on me about how I wasn't ready for the moment. Which obviously is wrong now," Williams said. "But that was the most annoying thing, because human nature is you want to just scream that you're hurt. But I was able to lock in and not use that as an excuse."
Williams had several huge performances in the Thunder's championship run, including 40 points in a Game 5 win against the Indiana Pacers that gave Oklahoma City a crucial 3-2 series lead in the NBA Finals. He also put up 34 points at the Minnesota Timberwolves in a pivotal Game 4 victory during the Western Conference finals.
"We won a championship; you can say whatever you want to say now," Williams said. "I will be getting my ring sized here shortly."
Thunder president Sam Presti praised Williams after the Finals for playing through the pain and never using it as an excuse.
"He powered through. He showed incredible mental endurance and security in himself," Presti said. "I really thought it was pretty impressive that he just kept moving along with no excuses and obviously played his best basketball down the stretch of the season."