The Thunder star bridged the gap between the bleachers and the court, running drills and playing three-on-three to provide local youth an unforgettable, hands-on NBA experience.
For Oklahoma City Thunder star Jalen Williams, this weekend was about more than putting on a basketball camp. It was about making himself available.
Williams spent Saturday in Tulsa before bringing his camp to the Oklahoma City/Norman area Sunday, giving hundreds of kids from across the state the opportunity to spend time with an NBA player they normally only get to watch from the stands or on television.
And Williams made sure it wasn’t just a camp where kids showed up, ran through a few drills and went home.
He was involved.
He walked kids through drills, played three-on-three with them, answered questions, offered advice, took pictures and signed autographs. More importantly, he made himself accessible throughout the experience.
That’s something Williams said he remembers wishing for when he was younger.
“It’s really cool. Um…I think not even here is a little more local I would say so it’s a little more accessible like to be able to do the camp in Tulsa [Saturday] I think was a really big deal like I was saying before just like when I did my introduction But to be able to do these camps where people don’t always get to see us play or interact with is really cool. So I was really happy to do the Tulsa one. Obviously, I’m really happy to do this one. It just gives the kids the opportunity to like, they may not make a Thunder game, but they get to do something like this, which is really cool.”
That last part is important.
Not every kid in Oklahoma is going to have the chance to attend a Thunder game. Tickets, travel and schedules can make that difficult for families. But Williams was able to bring a piece of the NBA experience directly to them.
And he didn’t want the experience to be about watching him. He wanted the kids to actually interact with him.
Williams has talked about how his parents’ work schedules prevented him from attending camps when he was younger. That’s one of the reasons he wanted to hold his own camp on a Sunday, when more parents might have the opportunity to bring their children.
“Yeah, um…I mean, yeah, it’s just like one of those things. It’s like, if it, if I was a kid, like what would I want an NBA player to do?”
Williams remembers attending a few camps later in his childhood and feeling like there could have been more interaction between the players and kids.
“I also did get the opportunity to do like a couple when I was like, I got a little older and I think I was like, I wish they interacted with the kids more and like did more stuff.”
So that’s what he’s trying to change.
Williams wants kids to leave his camps with more than a signed autograph or a picture. He wants them to feel like they actually spent time with him.
“That’s kind of what I’m trying to keep in the back of my mind when I’m doing these camps. But I think just showing that I’m visible, showing that I’m accessible to the kids and the parents, I think it’s really cool.”
For Williams, that accessibility is especially meaningful in Oklahoma.
“And obviously like, Oklahoma is one of those places too that it’s so family oriented. I think trying to incorporate that in my campus really a big help.”
For a couple of days, Williams wasn’t just an NBA player.
He was a coach, a teammate, a role model and, for hundreds of Oklahoma kids, somebody they could actually meet.
And that’s exactly the experience he wanted to create.
