Still, the league may not yet be ready for Chet Holmgren’s unusual talent.
Holmgren, at 7 feet 195 pounds, plays an interesting and frightening role for the NBA’s talent evaluator. For several years he has been on the draft radar as a particular Top 5 pick. There is no doubt that he will be in the top three on Thursday. He’s one of the most ridiculous 7-foot players to join the league, but there are concerns about how his thin frame will last, even in the open-minded, positionless NBA.
Holmgren is an elite prospect that most teams don’t dare to take over, but he’s a little scared of the process needed to get the most out of Holmgren. His talent is so clear that it is inaccurate to call Holmgren a project. He treats the ball by moving it like a guard. He protects the edges like a center. He tried 39% of the three points during the lonely season in Gonzaga. He is playing very hard. He is not soft at all. Still, he’s not bulky, so it takes imagination to predict his career.
Holmgren is an important test of this creative era. Unleashing his potential, the team will own one of the most atypical two-way battle nightmares the game has ever seen. If you fail to get the most out of him, you lose the opportunity for the whole game to grow in a fun, weird and unpredictable way.
Holmgren is rumored to prefer the second-choice Oklahoma City. On the first pick, Orlando is reported to be leaning towards Jabari Smith Jr. in Auburn Forward. Duke forward Paolo Banchero, who goes to Houston with a third-place pick in this scenario, probably has the highest floor of three players with his 250-pound frame and an aggressive repertoire that can be easily converted to the next level.
Holmgren is right to want to play for Thunder. Oklahoma City is committed to rebuilding patients. This gives him time to work on and adjust his body. Shai Gilgeous Alexander has a young scorer. He shares the great coat vision and back coat of Josh Giddey in 6ft 8 Australia. Most importantly, General Manager Sam Presti is a relentless and thoughtful team builder who inserts Holmgren into the culture of player development and professionalism. Fifteen years ago, Presti drafted Kevin Durant on his second pick. Durant is the best in another game ever, but a year after graduating from college, he came to the NBA as a super-skilled lean kid who needed time for his body to catch up with his talent. He’s still slender, but 25 pounds heavier and much stronger than a player who couldn’t lift the 185 pound bench press during the draft combine.
Some of what Presti has done to build a team around Durant can be applied to Holmgren. The difference is that Durant came at the beginning of Presti’s process, not in the middle of a rebuild, and Holmgren is profiling as a defense-first player over KD.
It’s hard to imagine the path to Holmgren’s greatness, which doesn’t involve a consistent appearance on the All-Defensive Team. Unless he is a shot blocker with the versatility to switch and cause havoc of all sorts, he will not reach his full value. Crime will be an ongoing task.
Holmgren was wise to play in Gonzaga, a balanced program that had the No. 1 option in the United States at Drew Timme. Holmgren averaged 14.1 points, 9.9 rebounds and 3.7 blocks. He shot 60.7 percent, worked within range of the attack and scored primarily in hustle play and open jumpers. Holmgren was as efficient as a bulldog, so Mark Few noticed the adjustments he had to make to the physical college match.
“It took me a long time to really really understand for the first week, two weeks, and a month,” few people said at the NCAA tournament. “His game is not a score. He affects the game in so many ways that we can probably argue that he affects the game on the defender side rather than the attacker side …
“You get a guy who is 50 pounds better than him, or a physical man, so it can be difficult to really demonstrate all the skills there, but at the same time he gives you a floor. Gives the ability to stretch. He is very proficient when we can find him around the rim. He can take the ball out of the glass and take a break, then he will give us I’ve never used drop coverage, as many people at the NBA do, but Chet alone can do that, while giving us an entity that he didn’t have on the defensive side. I did. “
Even if he is destined to be a star, Holmgren may take up to three years to become an ideal offensive and dependable man. Experimentation is the key to that process. When Presti drafted Holmgren, Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault gave tips on how to train players and bend his philosophy to make better use of his roster. 36-year-old Daigneault is one of the freshest thinkers to take over the NBA bystanders. If Holmgren comes in first or third, Orlando has a similar young coach at Jamal Mosley, and Houston’s Stephen Silas coach is also good at managing foundation-building talent. However, organizational patience is a matter of Orlando and Houston.
Few people have said about Holmgren, “He sometimes influences games that are difficult to measure.”
Holmgren moves surprisingly easily because it has such an unusually thin frame. He doesn’t look rough and doesn’t look fragile. He looks as comfortable as doing something unusual. His body needs work, and perhaps the mind of the staff drafting him deserves the most scrutiny.
If this is a possible NBA era, someone should be able to remind us of what Holmgren’s stardom looks like.
