Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace need surgery, and Jared McCain is the Thunder pickup

The diagnosis we declined to guess at on Monday morning arrived that evening, and it was worse for Oklahoma City than one injury. Thunder general manager Sam Presti said at a news conference that Jalen Williams has a fractured fibula and a dislocated left ankle and that Cason Wallace has a torn labrum in his left shoulder, both suffered in Sunday's win over the Clippers and both requiring surgery, according to Tim MacMahon's reporting for ESPN. Presti said the timelines would be known after the operations, and ESPN and Yahoo Sports both reported that the two starters could miss the rest of the season.

That turns our first story on Williams, which told managers to hold him until the Thunder spoke, into a different decision, and it opens two starting jobs at once. The useful question for a fantasy roster is no longer how long Williams is out but who absorbs roughly 48 minutes a night of starters, and on Monday night against Phoenix the answer was Ajay Mitchell, who started for Williams and scored a career-high 30, and Jared McCain, who started for Wallace and played 30 minutes.

The ranks are from our projections board under ESPN's standard points scoring and from our 9-cat board, comparing the nightly run before Monday's game with the run after it.

What the boards did with the two injuries

Our projections read ESPN's injury list each morning, and it now carries an estimated return of March 2 for both players, which is ESPN's estimate rather than anything the Thunder have said. That leaves Williams projected for about 19 games this season and Wallace for about 21, and the price our board charges for a long absence took Williams from 51st on points to 193rd and from 57th in 9-cat to 211th, even though his projected line on the nights he plays, 38.2 fantasy points a game, has not changed. The analysts' consensus still had him 39th on points and 28th in 9-cat when this was written, which tells you how fast this happened rather than anything about his value. If you have an injured reserve slot, Williams belongs in it, and in a league without one he is a hold only for a manager who can afford a dead roster spot until spring. Wallace was a steals specialist rather than a scorer, and he is a drop in most twelve-team leagues.

McCain gets the minutes, Mitchell gets the shots

The situations layer in our projections hands each injured starter's minutes to the healthy players behind him at the same position, and it gave McCain about 9.1 extra minutes for Wallace's absence, which took his projection from 23.8 minutes and 11.9 points a game to 34.0 minutes and 17.4 points with 3.1 threes. That moved him from 243rd to 128th on points and from 247th to 118th in 9-cat, the biggest jump on either board on Monday among players our projections had inside the top 400. His 18 points on Monday came on 6-for-14 shooting with four threes, four assists and a block in 30 minutes, according to ESPN's box score, which is close to the line we now project. As we wrote after his six threes on opening night, McCain's value always depended on the minutes rather than the shooting, and the minutes are now there.

Mitchell's case rests on the season rather than on the overlay. He had already been playing 25 to 28 minutes off the bench, and his projection rose from 13.3 to 14.6 points a game on the strength of four games that now include 30 points on 10-for-16 shooting and 9-for-10 at the line, which took him from 125th to 110th on points. His five-steal game last week is the 9-cat side of the same player, and at 1.3 projected steals he is a useful add in both formats.

Caruso and Holmgren

Alex Caruso gained a smaller share of Williams' minutes in our projections and rose to 110th in 9-cat, but ESPN's recap reported that he was helped to the locker room late in the second quarter on Monday with a sprained right ankle and did not return, and our numbers do not carry that yet. Chet Holmgren sat out Monday's game with patellar tendinitis in his right knee, according to the same recap, and ESPN's injury list expects him back on Wednesday, so nothing about his value has changed. The Thunder are 4-0 after a 125-114 win, and with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander already fourth on our points board, the extra shots this leaves him are worth less to his managers than the minutes are to McCain's.

What to do

Add McCain in twelve-team leagues in either format, and add Mitchell if he is still available, ahead of Caruso until the Thunder say how long the ankle will keep him out. Move Williams to an injured reserve slot rather than dropping him if your league has one, and drop Wallace unless you play in a league deep enough that a starter's steals in March are worth a bench spot until then. Check back after the surgeries, when the Thunder have said they will give timelines, because a firm date will move both players again.

Every player in this story is on the fantasy basketball rankings and the 2026-27 projections, and the NBA depth charts show where each one stands in his team’s rotation tonight.