There are a number of sibling duos (and trios) in the NBA, and on Wednesday night, another pair of brothers will join the club when Colorado’s Cody Williams gets selected. His older brother, Jalen Williams, is already in the league. Jalen’s rise in Oklahoma City to being one of the Thunder’s best players alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren has been impressive, and it’s also made teams wonder how high the ceiling is for his younger brother. Cody enjoyed a terrific start to the season at Colorado, but dealt with injuries that derailed his year, most notably an ankle injury that limited him considerably in the Buffaloes’ NCAA Tournament run. He is healthy now and back to climbing draft boards as an expected lottery pick, and will find out Wednesday night where he’ll be continuing his basketball career. For now, he’s in New York taking in the whole Draft experience alongside his brother. The two sat down with DIME on Tuesday afternoon on behalf of a new ad campaign they’re doing with Starry and Buffalo Wild Wings, and talked about how they push each other to get better, what they learn from the other to put into their games, Cody getting back healthy, Jalen’s biggest takeaway from his first real playoff experience, and much more.
To start with you Cody, how’s this week going for you and how are you managing nerves, managing the excitement as you get set for draft night here?
Cody: I think the big thing is just having my family here, that’s a big part of it. I’m not nervous at all, not really anxious — I did a great job throughout the whole entire process — but just for me, being able to enjoy my family, having a great group people around me, to help support me throughout this. I don’t really have to think about a lot outside of this process because they help me take care of a lot of stuff.
Jalen, what’s been the best advice you feel like you’ve been able to give him going through this process as he gets ready to make the leap into the NBA?
Jalen: I would probably just say try and enjoy the moments of it. You know, the Draft only happens one time for everybody. So just try to enjoy a lot of the little stuff and just take it in. Take in the experience of being in New York, doing the suit fittings, even the stuff that makes it inconvenient. I think that was a lot of stuff I remembered about doing the draft, so just kind of enjoy that.
Obviously part of that is getting to do this campaign was with Starry and Buffalo Wild Wings, what was it like putting this together and having some fun together on this campaign?
Jalen: It was dope. It was kind of a shock. I think I tweeted something out about going there — and they actually, like, built one by my house, so that’s kind of where I was going for a while — but I think I tweeted something about going there, like they used to have deals. I don’t remember the exact deal but I think it was like every Thursday, me and my teammates would go, especially towards the tail end of COVID. And you know, we’re college students so we didn’t have any money, so we’re kind of waiting on deals where they would do the buy one get one free for boneless wings. So, I mean, it was a full circle moment for me to be able to be in this campaign, and then also to do it with my brother and do that whole thing. So, it’s pretty cool to do that and be like a full circle moment.
Yeah, and Cody, I mean, this is your first time doing an ad campaign — what’s it been like for you?
Cody: I think the biggest thing for me is I kind of grew up eating Buffalo Wild Wings. So for me is, like, that childhood experience of going to Buffalo Wild Wings, watching the game, eating their food. And that really just kind of stuck with me. So being able to have my first ad campaign being a place where I used to always grow up eating and watching sports, which has always been a part of my life. Like that’s probably the best part of this whole thing. So now I get to have fun with it and really enjoy one of my favorite places to eat.
What’s the go-to wing sauce for each of y’all?
Cody: I think mine might be Asian Zing.
Jalen: Yeah, mine’s Asian Zing, by the way. It’s almost like y’all are brothers.
Jalen: Yeah. Mine is actually Asian Zing
