Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star Jalen Williams set the record straight about his team’s championship parade after winning the NBA Finals. Williams delivered an emotional speech to Thunder fans that day and gave them a special shoutout once again during his recent interview.
While discussing Oklahoma City’s historic 2024-25 title run, Jalen addressed the narrative surrounding the number of people who attended the championship parade.
After a social media trend suggested low attendance, Williams stressed that it simply wasn’t the case during his latest appearance on The Young Man & The Three podcast.
“The parade, I don’t know why everybody was doing the thing where I don’t know why it was a trend to like say that there wasn’t a ton of people out there, but it was actually overwhelming how many people were there,” Williams said. “But I mean, I enjoyed it, Oklahoma enjoyed it.”
While there were some gaps in the crowd throughout the parade route, most of the excited Thunder fans waited toward the end of the route to greet the team. Then, most gathered by the thousands for a celebration rally at Scissortail Park.
“This is their first one. Like we’re trying to figure it out too. And the NBA, you don’t really get a lot of time to actually set up a parade,” Williams added. “We had to do our parade on a Tuesday because of the draft.
“So it was rushed in a way, and we still have 700,000 people over there. The grass that we’re on, you can’t even see the grass. We didn’t even stay on the float; we ran the whole parade.”
For context, Oklahoma City itself only has a population of around 700,000.
Images of MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander greeting the crowd with a trophy in hand mid-parade splashed all over social media. Isaiah Hartenstein, Jaylin Williams, and others also engaged with the fans before giving a bigger shoutout to all the fans during the rally that concluded the parade.
Jalen Williams’ emotional message to Thunder fans at rally
After Jaylin Williams’ quick speech riled up Thunder fans, Thunder All-Star Jalen Williams kept his message short and sweet. The support from Oklahoma City paid off as it celebrated the Thunder's first championship parade in franchise history. Williams made sure they didn’t forget that.
“None of this is possible without you guys. You guys have been through the ups and downs of the Thunder organization,” Williams said. “We appreciate you guys. We love you guys.”
“None of this is possible without you guys. You guys have been through the ups and downs of the Thunder organization. We appreciate you guys. We love you guys."
Jalen Williams with a message for OKC fans 🗣️
(via @NBA)pic.twitter.com/L3H6JfjSP1
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) June 24, 2025
Williams and the Thunder will look to go back-to-back in the 2025-26 campaign.
