Thunder, Kenrich Williams agree to four-year, $27.2 million extension, per report

Kenrich Williams will turn 28 in December, and he is employed by a basketball team that went 24-58 last season. He plays both forward spots, has earned the nickname “Kenny Hustle” and is entering the third and final season of a contract that pays him $2 million annually. He is precisely the type of role player that contending teams covet, so people on the internet are constantly concocting hypothetical trades to send him to one of them. 

On Monday, CelticsBlog’s Keith Smith published a list of players that Boston could target with its soon-to-expire traded player exception. Williams was No. 2. Hours later, Williams and the Oklahoma City Thunder agreed to a four-year, $27.2 million contract extension, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. 

This does not necessarily mean that Williams will spend his entire career with the Thunder. It’s worth noting, however, that he wants to. 

“This might sound far-fetched, but I would like to retire here with the Oklahoma City Thunder,” Williams told The Oklahoman‘s Joe Mussatto in January. 

Williams repeated himself at his end-of-season media availability in April, adding that he loves being in Oklahoma City and it means a lot to have remained on a roster that has seen tons of turnover. He wanted to stay there because of his “coaches, teammates, everything,” he told reporters. “Just the culture.”

If Oklahoma City wants to build on the defensive identity it began to establish last season, locking up Williams is a good start. The Thunder, an average defensive team overall, allowed just 100.3 points per 100 possessions in Williams’ 1,072 minutes. (As a point of reference, the Boston Celtics‘ league-best defense allowed 106.2 per 100.) In the 397 minutes that Williams shared the court with Luguentz Dort, who is also signed through the 2026-27 season, Oklahoma City allowed 97.1 per 100.