OKC Thunder Center Chet Holmgren on How He's 'Gotten a lot better' in Rookie Season
After missing the entire 2022-23 season, rookie big man Chet Holmgren talked about the improvements he's made through his first professional 78 games.
After suffering a foot injury in the summer leading up to what would have been his rookie year, Chet Holmgren was forced to miss the entire 2022-23 season.
The former No. 2 overall pick bounced back in 2023-24, however, playing in and starting all 78 of Oklahoma City contests so far in what has been a solid first year for Holmgren.
Despite coming into the league with a good skill set, the Gonzaga product has shown improvement during the season, helping lead the Thunder to 53 wins and one of the top three seeds in the Western Conference with less than a week remaining until the postseason.
In a recent episode of "The Path", published on OKC's YouTube channel, Holmgren talked with Royce Young about getting better as his first year on an NBA court has progressed.
“Definitely gotten better, I feel like I have a lot more area to grow,” Holmgren said. “That’s how it goes, you don’t get from A to B in an instance. You’ve got to work and it takes time to get there.”
Holmgren talked specifically about some of his offensive moves and improving his game while learning how professional defenders react to what he does with the ball in his hands. One of the moves Holmgren referenced was his spin move, which has led to a few highlight reel plays this season.
In the NBA Summer League, Holmgren had the ball stolen on a few plays because his spin move wasn't refined enough yet to work consistently against players with more NBA experience. Young pointed this out in a film session with the 7-footer, and Holmgren gave a mature answer.
“Just trying to read the defender, and if I see them giving up a spin move I'm going to take a spin move," Holmgren said. "All the moves that I do, I try to get better at them over time and clean up the areas where it might not be as effective, that might lead to mistakes.”
Another one of the standout rookie's top offensive weapons is his ability to pump fake on the perimeter and attack the basket off the dribble. At 7-feet-tall, Holmgren is a threat to shoot a 3-pointer but also has good enough ball-handling skills to get by defenders and get into the paint.
Holmgren also said that he has improved this aspect of his game, learning from early-season struggles and adjusting his game to become even more versatile on offense.
“When I decide to shoot the ball, I’m pretty much big enough that I can get my shot off,” the Minnesota native said. “Early in the year, I was pump faking too much to the point where teams didn’t even believe I was going to shoot, so they’d just close short and take the drive away. Now, I’ve found a good balance of, if you’re going to close short I’m going to shoot the ball, and my attempts are way up. I’m shooting the ball well, so I’ve got to keep that going.”
As a rookie, Holmgren is averaging 16.6 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.4 blocks per game while shooting 52.7% from the field and 37.1% from beyond the arc.
If the Thunder's big man is able to continue learning from his time on the floor and adjusting his game, he should blossom into an All-Star caliber player within the coming years and will continue to be a key piece of Oklahoma City's success.
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