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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Bryan Kalbrosky

The Thunder had a massive game delay after names of Jalen and Jaylin Williams confused refs

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.

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.

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.

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