Jalen Williams faces his brother, Cody, in ‘full circle’ moment in Thunder vs Jazz
Jalen Williams faces his brother, Cody, in ‘full circle’ moment in Thunder vs Jazz
SALT LAKE CITY — By the time her sons walked into her embrace, Nicole Williams’ eyes had long been red.
Her oldest, Jalen, approached her with sandals and his dogs out, as comfortable as he’d been after all the games his mother attended when he was growing up. Her youngest, Cody, stretched his 7-foot-1 wingspan to snatch a tear rolling down her face. She’d been present at a number of their games this season — Jalen and his Thunder, Cody and his Jazz — but was overwhelmed by something she’d never seen until then.
For the first time in their careers, her sons shared the floor.
“Makeup everywhere,” Jalen said following a 130-107 Oklahoma City win Friday. “She cried the whole game.”
Jalen has done what he can to eliminate subplots from the season, but he’d been talking about the meeting for days. His first chance to play the Jazz came in early December, a game Cody, a rookie, missed due to a G League assignment. They got their shot again in January. Cody missed that game, too.
For months, a moment that was unattainable during their childhoods kept slipping from his grasp.
“Jalen was so anxious to play with Cody,” Nicole recalled of their earlier years. “I remember when Cody was in high school. (Jalen) was like, ‘Mom, he’s smart, just bump him up a grade so we can play together.’ And it’s like, ‘Nope, you can’t do that.’”
Cody added: “When I was a freshman in high school, he was a freshman in college, so we always just joked about the only way we’re gonna play against each other is in the NBA. So it’s just crazy that that came true.”
When Friday’s second quarter began, neither wasted their chance. Cody stood in the corner, hunched over as the play developed. Jalen rushed to him, accepting one of his few chances to defend his brother, twitching between the key and corner while giving the rookie his respect.
Jalen finished the night with 18 points, nine rebounds, four assists and two steals in 28 minutes. Cody added three points and three boards in 16 minutes.
As animated and talkative as he can be, Jalen isn’t much of a heckler. Facing Cody didn’t change that. He didn’t have the words then, and he struggled to search for them later on in the night.
“I don’t really have words for it, bro,” Jalen said. “It’s very weird. It was emotional, though, because I was trying not to cheer for him when I was on the bench, too. He’s grown up. He’ll be a great NBA player for a long time, but yeah, it’s just one of those things where, when you’re the older brother, you’re trying to make sure you’re doing the right thing. So the fact that he’s here doing well kind of solidifies that somewhere along the way I was doing something right.”
From the stands, about a dozen rows up from the Jazz bench, were several two-tone jerseys split vertically, the left side featuring Cody’s white No. 5 Utah jersey, the other Jalen’s No. 8 in sunset orange — the colors they were originally meant to wear in the December meeting. Nicole Williams and her family were mailed the jerseys shortly after the schedule came out, the work of both teams. Friday was hardly their first wear.
“It’s very gratifying,” Williams said. “My parents have done a lot from military, serving their country, and then still being able to be in our lives super heavy and have that influence. So to give them these opportunities and to kind of just do stuff behind the scenes, it’s one of those testaments to how hard they’ve worked and how hard we’ve worked and how far we’ve come. So it’s really cool that they get those moments. They get to enjoy those with us.”
Compute the odds of a high schooler making it to the league and watch a series of zeros be spat back at you. For a household to birth not just one, but two NBA players several years apart? Thinking of the improbability, Nicole and her husband, Ron, turned to each other to think about what those odds made them.
“Blessed,” they said, seemingly reading each other’s minds.
One son a five-star recruit and top-10 pick, the other an unheralded, mid-major, multi-season stud who was labeled a reach when selected as the No. 12 pick in the draft a few years back; three years later he became an NBA All-Star.
“For both of their journeys in general, it’s kind of been the same, just seeing them hit milestones, seeing them accomplish the things that they set out to accomplish, seeing all their hard work pay off, watching them both be resilient,” said Nicole Williams, describing her emotions after an eventful week. “That’s it. It’s not even just a one-moment thing. It’s just continuous. So I think I will forever be like this. I will forever be crying.”
Her sons keep giving her reasons to.
Jalen Williams, Cody Williams swap jerseys after Thunder-Jazz game
Jalen Williams swaps jerseys with his younger brother, Utah rookie Cody Williams, after Friday night’s Thunder-Jazz game in Salt Lake City.
Joel Lorenzi covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joel? He can be reached at jlorenzi@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @jxlorenzi. Support Joel’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
