Chet Holmgren Knows Exactly What Matters This Season
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In 2022, there was one name on every basketball scout's mind: Chet Holmgren. At the time, the 7'1" center was just a green freshman from Gonzaga, ready to enter the NBA at 20 years old. Everything was going to plan for the Minnesota native: ESPN ranked him as the top prospect on their 2022 NBA Draft projection board. ("Figures to make a big impact.") At the draft, the Oklahoma City Thunder selected him with the second pick. Then, before the season even began—Holmgren suffered a Lisfranc fracture in his foot. Sidelined him for the whole year. It's the kind of injury that could—and very often does—derail a career. But Holmgren is not that player.
"Initially when I got hurt, I was worried about so many other things," Holmgren tells me, remembering the difficult, anxiety-filled days and weeks after his injury. "By the time I was able to worry about something like that, the fans had already shown that they had my back and that wasn't going to change."
Fast-forward to this NBA season, AKA take two of Holmgren's rookie year. Let me sum up a hell of a season for you: Holmgren has made a major impact on a team with serious NBA Finals aspirations. The Thunder have the second-best record in the league, which is partly due to Holmgren's skills as a rebounder, defensive presence, and unusual—but certainly appreciated by Thunder faithful—threat from the three-point line for a seven-footer.
"I don't think any one thing is the reason for any success that we've had so far," Holmgren says. "Over the summer, all these dudes are in the gym working hard to get better. And I was doing the same thing last summer. When we came into the season this year, we all just had one goal in mind: Win basketball games."
Well, mission accomplished. Alongside Holmgren, the Thunder have one of the most exciting young cores in the NBA. Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, 22, is already an MVP contender. Jalen Williams, 22, is downright electric. Don't forget Isaiah Joe, 24, who is shooting 41 percent from deep this season. The squad is at the top of the Western Conference standings—and their youthful energy and fast-paced play hasn't gone unnoticed. "This is a position that most of us are experiencing for the first time and we're rallying around that," Holmgren says. "We're looking towards each other to figure things out, whether it's going good or bad. We're just trying to go through this together."
You know what they say about reaching a certain level of success in pro sports: With great power, comes great responsibility... to appear in commercials. If you're a March Madness fan, you'll see Holmgren and Gilgeous-Alexander star in a new AT&T spot, which is part of the company's "Connect to the Madness" campaign. Prepare to, at long last, have another commercial jingle stuck in your head that's not the Burger King song. In the ad, the Thunder stars sing "What a Player Wants" to the tune of Christina Aguilera's "What a Girl Wants." It's cute, sure, but nothing like the chaos of the single-elimination tournament, which kicks off tomorrow. "The way the ball bounces off the rim can change the entire tournament," Holmgren says, reminiscing about his March Madness days. "It's like the perfect combination of everything these teams have been working towards this whole season, and yet the outcome is the most unscripted thing."
As excited as Holmgren is to remember his time at Gonzaga, there's still plenty for him to look forward to this season. He's in the Rookie of Year race, alongside French phenom Victor Wembanyama. For damn near the entire season, the media has repeatedly pit Wembanyama and Holmgren against each other with each one of their matchups fueling a day's worth of ESPN programming. "The media has a job to do and they're going to create narratives between people, between teams, between whatever it might be," Holmgren says of their rivalry.
It seems genuine, even given the intensity of Holmgren and Wembanyama's head-to-head matchups. Either way, Holmgren has—if the Thunder continue to play like this—a long playoff run to prepare for. "At the end of the day, my job is to focus on the Thunder and how we can win basketball games," he says. "That's what I've done so far and that's what I'm going to continue to do."
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