When the Oklahoma City Thunder drafted Jalen Williams and Jaylin Williams in the same class, the potential for hijinx was obvious.
The two players with nearly identical names were involved in a confusing situation when the Thunder played the Hawks on Wednesday. To avoid any mix-ups in this article, we will refer to the former Santa Clara wing as J-Dub and the former Arkansas big as J-Will.
During the second half, there was a very long review because referees and both teams had J-Dub with two fouls. But the main scorebook had him with three fouls.
There has been like a 10-minute delay in this Hawks-Thunder game as they try to figure out how many fouls Jalen Williams has. All the more confusing because he is of course teammates with Jaylin Williams.
— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) January 4, 2024
We have a Jalen/Jaylin Williams confusion
What’s most confusing is how long this is taking
— Andrew Schlecht (@AndrewKSchlecht) January 4, 2024
Lol is all this confusion happening because the NBA refs and/or statisticians can't tell the difference between Jalen Williams and Jaylin Williams?
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) January 4, 2024
The double Jalen/Jaylin Williams has finally, actually created real-world complications.
— Derek Parker (@DParkOK) January 4, 2024
Zach Zarba, the crew chief for the evening, consulted with the league office in Secasus. The refs had to rewatch part of the previous quarter to see which Williams had committed one of the fouls.
There was a ridiculously long review period, which The Oklahoman beat writer Joel Lorenzi described as feeling more like attending a “kickback” than attending a live sporting event.
Just vibin pic.twitter.com/M8XPNWKHTO
— Topic: Thunder Podcast (@OKCTopicThunder) January 4, 2024
Officials eventually determined that to that point in the game, J-Dub had committed three fouls.
But this would have likely gotten solved much sooner, though, if these two players didn’t have such similar names.
