Thunder’s Kenrich Williams Fills Challenging Void

Entering the 2022-23 campaign, the Oklahoma City Thunder were already one of the smaller teams in the NBA from a height standpoint. They lost Chet Holmgren to a foot injury before the season even started, leaving Aleksej Pokusevski as the only 7-footer on the team.

This left Oklahoma City in a situation that would require a center by committee approach. The Thunder no longer had a starting caliber big that could dominate the paint for 30 minutes each night.

As such, Pokusevski would be joined by Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Darius Bazley, Jaylin Williams and Mike Muscala to fill the center minutes for the season.

Unfortunately for the Thunder, Robinson-Earl went down with an ankle injury early in December, followed by Pokusevski suffering a leg injury roughly two weeks later. Oklahoma City entered the near year with little depth in the frontcourt, meaning the coaching staff would have to get creative with rotations given the limited resources.

This is when Kenrich Williams really stepped up and did something most players of his size couldn’t. He’d been playing great for OKC on the wing, but would now be asked to temporarily play a new role until the roster got more healthy.

Standing at 6-foot-6, Williams had had spent 62% of his career minutes at small forward entering 2022-23 campaign. The rest of his workload was spent primarily at power forward (25%) and shooting guard (11%) with very little exposure to the center position.

Now, as he’s playing primarily as a big for the Thunder, he’s already up to 31% of his total minutes this season being at the center position despite this shift in role occuring less than a month ago.

While Williams doesn’t always start, he has played the fifth most minutes of any player on the roster since he took on this new role. During this span, he’s averaged 8.6 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.6 assists while shooting 51.6% from floor and 44.4% from deep.

He’s been a real connector on the offensive end, playing very similar to how we’ve seen Draymond Green impact the game over the years. Williams has been very successful operating in the midrange, shooting jumpers over his defender or blowing by leveraging his advantage of being quicker than most centers.

He’s also served as an offensive hub near the free throw line, kicking the ball out to open teammates when the defense collapses. This has been especially impactful when teams run zone against Oklahoma City, playing inside out.

Although Williams gives up a ton of size to opposing centers on the defensive end, the team has done a great job of scheming against that. Since he began filling the void as a primary center, the Thunder have been the eighth best defensive team in the NBA. They’ve also put together a top ten record over this span at 9-6, while being a top five offense and earning the league’s fifth highest point differential.

As good as Oklahoma City has been with Williams playing heavy center minutes, this likely isn’t something they want to do long-term. However, it does go to show just how versatile he is and how well this Thunder team can play in small ball situations.

Moving forward, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Aleksej Pokusevski will earn back the majority of these minutes as they make their respective returns while Williams shifts back to his natural position.