The Oklahoma City Thunder were among the busiest teams during Thursday night’s NBA Draft, as they made three picks in the lottery, taking Chet Holmgren at No. 2, traded three future firsts to the Knicks for the 11th overall pick to pick up Ousmane Dieng, and then selected Jalen Williams with the 12th pick.
They added one more player in the second round, taking Jaylin Williams, leading to plenty of jokes about taking two players with the same name. The Jalen/Jaylin Williams combo makes for a rare and interesting conundrum for the Thunder staff as they try to talk about the two players, with Sam Presti figuring out a workaround in his post-draft availability, referring to each as their name plus the college they attended — Santa Clara and Arkansas, respectively.
Presti is referring to two of his draft picks as “Jalen Williams Santa Clara” and “Jaylin Williams Arkansas.”
What a night.
— Joe Mussatto (@joe_mussatto) June 24, 2022
Fans had plenty of jokes after the two were drafted by the same team, with a lot of Spiderman memes floating around, enough to get the Thunder in on the joke as they had their two rookies of the same name recreate that meme in their first photoshoot donning their OKC uniforms.
they did the thing pic.twitter.com/HkmpWOwUGZ
— jess (@jessichords) June 26, 2022
It’s some terrific team photoshoot content, and it seems the two have come up with their own way of differentiating themselves, as Jalen says he’s “J-Dub” while Jaylin is “J-Will.”
Jay Will JDub@Jay_MWilliams_ @JdubPSCEO pic.twitter.com/QHl3TIwmBV
— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) June 26, 2022
It’s nice of them to come up with a system for their teammates and coaching staff to separate the two when calling them out at practice.