How mix up of Thunder's Jalen and Jaylin Williams led to lengthy delay vs. Hawks

The Thunder's decision to draft both Jalen Williams and Jaylin Williams in the 2022 NBA Draft is already paying dividends for the franchise. Naturally, it's been the cause of plenty of confusion as well.

While their first names are spelled differently, their full names have identical pronunciations. And while they play different positions and are four inches apart in height, the most recent mix-up between the Thunder's duo of Williams resulted in a lengthy delay.

Here's how the similarity in their names disrupted an otherwise routine outing.

MORE: How Thunder became NBA's dark horse contender

How a mix-up of Thunder's Jalen and Jaylin Williams led to a delay vs. Hawks

Minutes into the second half of the Thunder's visit to the Hawks on Jan. 3, Atlanta head coach Quin Snyder signaled for a timeout after OKC opened the third quarter on a 13-6 run.

As the action was set to resume, Atlanta's Saddiq Bey waited to inbound the ball to Trae Young but official Scott Twardoski waited to hand Bey the ball as crew chief Zach Zarba worked to sort out a clerical issue with the scorer's table. 

From the floor microphone, Zarba was overheard attempting to clarify the number of fouls charged to No. 6 Jaylin Williams and No. 8 Jalen Williams as there was an evident discrepancy.

Atlanta play-by-play analyst Bob Rathbun shared that the stat monitor showed that Jalen Williams had been charged with three fouls but there was a contingent under the impression that he had committed two.

As the delay neared its third minute, Snyder and Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault joined the discussion between Zarba and scoring officials in an attempt to "get it right."

During the fourth minute of the delay, Hawks analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins joked, "I could've went to the store and back" in the time officials were taking to sort things out. 

MORE: How to vote for 2024 NBA All-Star starters

"I think there's some confusion on the number of fouls that Jalen [Williams] has in this one," sideline reporter Tabitha Turner-Wilkins said as the delay neared its sixth minute on the broadcast.

"Both sides on the bench have two fouls apiece for him but the book on the official's table is reading three and that's the one that's reflected on the scoreboard in the arena so that's what everybody is seeing.

"That's why Oklahoma City's coach came over just to rectify how many fouls he had because we know that this can come to the wire and the number of fouls will matter when it comes to fouling out of the game or being able to stay in."

After nearly nine minutes on the broadcast and an additional three minutes during the timeout, the situation was seemingly rectified as it was "determined that Jalen Williams has three fouls."

Apparently both team scorebooks had him with two fouls but the main scorebook had three fouls. And after about 12 minutes they have determined that he indeed has three fouls.

— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) January 4, 2024

The equivalent of a quarter of game time passed in real-time for it to be determined that the official's scorebook was correct and Williams did indeed have three fouls. The game, which did go down to the wire, resulted in a 141-138 Hawks victory.

To add some irony to it all, both Jalen and Jaylin Williams finished the game with four fouls apiece.