Thunder rookie Jaylin Williams has support of OKC's Vietnamese community

Long Tran was at a season ticket holder event when he met Jaylin Williams, the Thunder’s rookie center from Arkansas. 

Tran and other Thunder fans were shooting halfcourt shots to try and win courtside seats, but Tran also took a second to connect with Williams, also known as J-Will. 

“The Vietnamese community needs you!” Tran told Williams. 

“He was cracking up,” said Tran, relaying the story. “He was a very, very, very nice guy.” 

Tran and his family are among the 30,000 Oklahomans with Vietnamese roots, a number provided by the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma, and Williams is among them. The Thunder big man is the first player of Vietnamese descent ever to play in the NBA. 

That he’s doing it in Oklahoma City, home to a thriving Asian District — predominantly filled with Vietnamese businesses and restaurants — is even more meaningful. 

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“I’ve been getting a lot of support from the Vietnamese community,” Williams told The Oklahoman after a recent shootaround. “When I see people out, they always come up to me. If you see people in my jersey during the game, most of the time it’s Vietnamese people. It’s really awesome.” 

Williams’ Vietnamese heritage comes from his mom’s side. Linda Williams was born in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, before moving to the United States with her mom, Nga, in 1975 after the Vietnam War. 

Jaylin’s mom and grandma now live in Springdale, Arkansas — just outside Fayetteville, where Jaylin played two seasons for the Razorbacks, and 70 miles north of Fort Smith, where Jaylin grew up and went to high school. 

Jaylin Williams’ roots are in Arkansas, but he wants to visit Vietnam, and he even wants to learn Vietnamese, which his grandma speaks but his mom can only understand. 

First, though, Williams said he needs to find a spot in Oklahoma City for pho, a delicious Vietnamese soup dish. He needn’t look further than the restaurants in the Asian District, off Classen Boulevard between NW 23rd St. and NW 30th St. 

The area will be bustling this week through next weekend. Sunday is the start of the Lunar New Year, which Vietnamese people call Tet. It’s the biggest festival of the year in Vietnam. 

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Also on Sunday, the Thunder plays the Nuggets in Denver, where Williams might find himself wrestling with Nikola Jokic, the back-to-back MVP. 

It’s been quite a journey for Williams, whom the Thunder selected with the 34th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. 

“It couldn’t have worked out better for us that he landed there,” Linda Williams said, mentioning that her daughter and grandkids live in Edmond. “Jaylin wanted to be in a smaller market because he’s, at heart, a little country boy.” 

When he was drafted, the Williamses didn’t realize the significance of Jaylin being the first NBA player with Vietnamese heritage.  

“It never dawned on us he would be,” Linda Williams said. “It’s so special to our family, to Jaylin … I’m still in awe of my son and what he’s capable of doing.” 

Williams, who wears No. 6, has played in 15 games, making six starts. He’s averaging 3.9 points and 3.8 rebounds per game. 

Two of those starts came against star Sixers center Joel Embiid. When the Thunder has needed size and toughness inside, coach Mark Daigneault has turned to the 6-foot-10 and 240-pound Williams, who’s played a bigger role given the injuries to Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Aleksej Pokusevski. 

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As a sophomore at Arkansas last season, Williams led the NCAA with 54 charges drawn. That sacrificial skill has carried over. He leads the Thunder with 1.2 charges drawn per 36 minutes. 

Tran touted Williams’ toughness. 

“I’m telling you right now, the Vietnamese community, the people that I know who are Thunder fans, they root for him,” Tran said. “We don’t get a lot of Vietnamese NBA players or any athletes that are known.” 

Tran, only four or five at the time, and his family were among the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, like Jaylin’s mom and grandma, who fled the country in the months and years after April 1975, when the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon. 

“Our family left in the middle of the night on a fishing boat and made our journey to America,” Tran said. “We came in with the clothes on our back. Luckily didn’t run into a lot of horror stories you hear with the escape.” 

The Trans originally settled in Sherman, Texas, before moving to Enid. Long and his family now live in Yukon. 

“Living the American dream,” he said.

“And now we’ve got a Vietnamese representative in the NBA, what’s up!” Tran yelled. 

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Thuan Nguyen, who’s running to become Oklahoma City’s first Asian-American city councilman, said he recently read a Vietnamese news story about Williams, signaling J-Will’s impact on the other side of the world.  

“A lot of people in our community are really excited to see him engage more, play more, and we’re just enthusiastic to have an Asian-American basketball player in Oklahoma City,” Nguyen said. 

Michelle Lo said Williams has been an inspiration to her son. 

"Having Jaylin on the Thunder team is big for my family because to us, this represents hope,” Lo wrote in an email. “We have a 9-year-old son who is also Vietnamese-American and dreams to play in the NBA one day. 

“Jaylin gives our son an opportunity to see barriers being broken.” 

Williams smiled. 

“It’s awesome, honestly,” he said. “It’s really cool knowing that people look up to me the way I used to look up to other players.” 

Thunder vs. Nuggets

TIPOFF: 7 p.m. Sunday at Ball Arena in Denver (BSOK)

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