{"id":796395,"date":"2024-02-12T10:30:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T15:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=796395"},"modified":"2024-02-14T16:33:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T21:33:34","slug":"chet-holmgren-cover-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/248\/chet-holmgren-cover-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Chet Holmgren Reflects on How He Propelled Past Season-Ending Injury to Assemble Historic Rookie Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

He remembers the first doctor visit vividly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less than 24 hours after suffering a foot injury at a CrawsOver Pro-Am league game in Seattle, Chet Holmgren had flown to Oklahoma City to get it looked at. And as he sat in the x-ray room in front of OKC Thunder GM Sam Presti, a wide range of emotions began to kick in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hearing him describe it, it sounds like somewhere between guilt, pain, disappointment, sadness and distress. Probably a little hint of all of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was late August 2022, and the start of training camp was just about a month away. For Holmgren, that signaled the highly anticipated debut of his rookie season after being selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the NBA Draft earlier in the summer. Fans had already gotten a glimpse of his talent at Summer League weeks earlier. But it appeared that his real debut would have to be put on hold for the foreseeable future. The prognosis didn\u2019t look promising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing imaging, I\u2019m sitting on the doctor\u2019s table and I\u2019m talking to Presti, and I\u2019m just falling apart because he just drafted me two months, month and a half prior, and it\u2019s like, you want to kind of validate his belief in you and the organization\u2019s belief in you. And then you get hurt and you feel like you let everybody down, even though I wasn\u2019t wrong for it, I was trying to get better and trying to hoop,\u201d\u00a0says Holmgren, who was ultimately diagnosed with a Lisfranc injury to his right foot.\u00a0\u201cBut I just remember sitting there and just falling apart. Not like apologizing, because I knew I had nothing to apologize for, but I was just so hurt by it. And then he was giving me advice, and he\u2019s a big, big process guy. So, he was just reminding me, like, the process is going to win in this. And that\u2019s part of why I took everything so serious and didn\u2019t cheat any corners or anything. Just because I had people reminding me that the process is always going to win in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SLAM 248 featuring Chet Holmgren is available now. Shop here.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine days later, he\u2019d have surgery. The recovery timeline meant he\u2019d have to miss the entire upcoming season. And for the following eight weeks post-surgery, he\u2019d have to wheel himself around on a scooter. Not like that was ever going to stop him from hitting the hardwood and getting up some shots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was out there on the court, standing on one leg with the other leg up on a scooter, just shooting as many shots as I could shoot before they made me go sit down\u2014they\u2019d be telling me, like, Go home!,<\/em>\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut when you\u2019re just standing on a scooter, you\u2019re not getting tired, so I was like, I can do this all day.<\/em>\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setbacks help put things into perspective, and this particular one was no different for Chet. Mundane everyday tasks all of a sudden became the most challenging and time-consuming missions ever. But it\u2019s the ability to reflect back on those moments, unpack them and articulate the frame of mind derived from the experience that makes it all worth it for the 21-year-old.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was literally wheeling around on a scooter for the first eight weeks post-surgery. You know, it really makes you realize what you\u2019re taking for granted when just the ease of life is taken away\u2014I couldn\u2019t drive anywhere, it was my right foot, so I\u2019m pretty much relying on other people to get me around. Everything\u2019s harder,\u201d he says. \u201cI gotta hop around, getting in and out of the shower, everything\u2019s more difficult. So, it really makes you appreciate all the small things that you can really do every single day with ease. And I feel like I didn\u2019t take it for granted before, but [I] definitely don\u2019t now.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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His first game back would be almost a year later at Summer League in Salt Lake City last July. A light 15 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just remember I was so amped to get out there and play. And I was just so ready. And I remember the first time I touched the ball, I got so excited [that] I just put up a terrible shot,\u201d says Holmgren, laughing. \u201cIt was an awful shot. And nobody looked at me wrong for it\u2014cause I feel like everybody understood\u2014but at the same time it was a terrible shot. I just wanted to make sure I came out aggressive, \u2019cause I was ready to play. I\u2019d been waiting 13 months to play. I hadn\u2019t played a game in 13 months. There was a lot of emotion around it. I had my family out there watching me and all my teammates were supporting me in that moment, but they\u2019d been supporting me throughout the whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wouldn\u2019t take long for him to start turning heads in the regular season. In just his second outing, Holmgren set the franchise record for most blocks in a single game by a rookie with 7. This came as no surprise to anyone who saw him play at Gonzaga, where in his college debut, he matched the program\u2019s single-game blocks record\u2014which, coincidentally, was also 7.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time Chet was one month into the NBA\u2019s regular season, he had also become the first rookie in franchise history to have multiple 30+ point outings in the first month of his career. In fact, he dropped 30+ twice within a four-game window.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To no one\u2019s surprise, he was named Rookie of the Month in the Western Conference for October\/November. And in December, he showed no signs of slowing down, averaging 17.4 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.5 blocks in 13 games on his way to yet another Rookie of the Month nod. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He ranks top four in the NBA in blocks per game as of late January.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In retrospect, trusting his foot wasn\u2019t an issue at all upon returning. If anything, it became the least of his worries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe biggest thing that I learned from injuries is, like, where you got injured, you\u2019re working so hard to strengthen it, that part of your body is going to be good. It\u2019s more all the things around it that get deconditioned so much when you\u2019re sitting out and just letting your body heal,\u201d says Holmgren. \u201cSo, your foot\u2019s good now, but now your back\u2019s weak, so your back is getting tight, and then now your knee hurts \u2019cause you haven\u2019t been putting that pressure on it and keeping it as strong. And then you got shin splints \u2019cause you\u2019ve been sitting out for so long that that needs to recondition. So, it\u2019s like all the little things around it pop up. But if you\u2019re able to manage that and then kind of stay on top of it, over time it\u2019ll go away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impressive early start to his career has him in a tight race with San Antonio Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only has Chet put up big numbers\u2014tune in to a Thunder game and you would think he\u2019s been part of their rotation for a handful of years based on the way he\u2019s been able to seamlessly fit in. The impeccable chemistry has helped propel the franchise to the top of the Western Conference standings. At a little over the halfway mark of the season in late January (as we head to printers), the Thunder find themselves half a game from the No. 1 spot in the West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mean, I don\u2019t have expectations, but at the same time, I\u2019m not surprised by anything that I do,\u201d says Holmgren. \u201cI feel like whatever I go out there and do is an accumulation of the work that I\u2019ve put in. I know what I can do. I know what I need to work on. And what I go out there and do are things that I\u2019ve been working on my whole life. So, am I surprised by what I\u2019m doing? No.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s not often that a team has one player in serious contention for the MVP award while another one is doing the same in the ROY race, but that\u2019s exactly where this OKC franchise finds itself with its duo of Chet and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Nor is it often that a team that didn\u2019t even make the playoffs the prior season is now vying for the No. 1 seed in the conference. This is undoubtedly a new era for the franchise, and Chet is poised to help bring back that same aura that he remembers the Thunder having in middle school when Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook were all teammates during their early years in the League. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember watching their playoff series back in, like, \u201911, \u201912, \u201913 and everybody\u2019s wearing the same color shirt, screaming [in the stands],\u201d says Holmgren. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna get back to that point.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SLAM 238 IS OUT NOW!\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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SHOP NOW<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Portraits <\/em>by <\/em>Atiba Jefferson<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He remembers the first doctor visit vividly.  Less than 24 hours after suffering a foot injury at a CrawsOver Pro-Am league game in Seattle, Chet Holmgren had flown to Oklahoma City to get it looked at. And as he sat in the x-ray room in front of OKC Thunder GM Sam Presti, a wide range […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":797533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65157],"tags":[27086,62525,35571,63367],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-796395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-65157","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-feature-1","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-the-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796395"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797541,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796395\/revisions\/797541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796395"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=796395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}