When Jalen Williams finally made his much anticipated return to the Oklahoma City Thunder lineup, OKC fans were ecstatic to finally see a fully healthy starting lineup. Except that didn't happen. The Williams season debut came against the Phoenix Suns, which just happened to coincide with starting center Isaiah Hartenstein's first missed game of the year.

Through 21 games, there have been two prevailing themes for this Thunder squad. One, they have missed at least one starter as well as multiple rotation players each game. Two, they keep stacking wins anyway.

Just when it seemed the team was getting healthier, news broke that Hartenstein strained his right soleus and would be re-evaluated in 10 to 14 days. I'll save you the Google search: it's a deep calf muscle strain. To add salt to the wound, Lu Dort popped up on the injury report for the Tuesday night game against the Warriors with a right adductor strain. That's the same injury that caused Aaron Wiggins to miss 11 games. Coincidentally, Wiggins just returned from his adductor recovery in OKC's last game against the Trail Blazers. It's been an unfortunate game of medical musical chairs in the Thunder locker room.

Below is a current total of games missed from the OKC roster due to injury through 21 games.

Cason Wallace: 1 missed game.

Jaylin Williams: 1 missed game.

Isaiah Hartenstein: 2 missed games.

Chet Holmgren: 4 missed games.

Isaiah Joe: 5 missed games.

Lu Dort: 6 missed games.

Alex Caruso: 6 missed games.

Aaron Wiggins: 11 missed games.

Kenrich Williams: 18 missed games.

Jalen Williams: 19 missed games.

Thomas Sorber: 21 missed games.

Nikola Topic: 21 missed games.

A quarter of the way through the 2025-2026 season, that's 31 missed games from the starting lineup and 36 missed games from nightly rotation players. Not to mention, 42 missed games from a lottery pick that was projected as a top 5 talent and a rookie just drafted #15 overall.

And yet, Oklahoma City is 20-1. Only the fourth team in NBA history with such a mark. There's a rock solid Shai Gilgeous-Alexander MVP argument embedded within the subtext of all these numbers, but we'll save that for another RoundTable discussion on another day.

Thunder fans have been excited to welcome Jalen Williams, Kenrich Williams and Aaron Wiggins back to the team recently. Hopefully, it won't be long until they can welcome back Lu Dort, Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein as well.