NBA veteran Patrick Beverley offers high praise to Chet Holmgren

The Oklahoma City Thunder are eagerly awaiting Chet Holmgren’s return to the hardwood; the Gonzaga product was on the shelf for the entire 2022-23 NBA season with a Lisfranc Fracture after OKC made him the 2nd overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. Oklahoma City has remained confident that his rehab has stayed on pace, and the next evolution in that seems to feature him playing at NBA Summer League.

However, OKC Thunder fans, Chet Holmgren himself, and the organization are not the only ones anticipating his return. Patrick Beverley, who hosts the Pat Bev Podcast, mentioned how the rest of the league views Holmgren’s NBA potential on the latest episode.

NBA Veteran Patrick Beverley has belief in Chet Holmgren’s NBA ability and says players around the league praise Holmgren’s mentality.

Chet Holmgren is a seven-foot big man that was projected as one of the best defensive big men prospects coming out of Gonzaga, shooting at a 40 percent clip from beyond the arc and providing help on the glass. A year ago, Holmgren was viewed as a cornerstone of the franchise.

A year later, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander turned in an MVP-caliber season, Jalen Williams became the runner-up for rookie of the year, and the rest of the roster progressed to the point the Thunder put together a 40 win season which featured a win in the play-in tournament.

It is easy to forget about Holmgren, not literally, but forget what he was/is supposed to bring. That is not lost on the organization or fellow NBA veterans.

Patrick Beverley was presented a hot take from his co-host “Rone” that Chet Holmgren will be better than the 2023 first overall pick, Victor Wembanyama, who is a generational prospect. That sparked Beverley to discuss how other NBA veterans few the OKC Thunder big man. [Warning: NSFW Language]

“I’ve been speaking to guys around the league, and I’ve been asking about him, and their response has been this: ‘Hey Pat, he going to be nice. Not because of his size, not because of his talent, because of his attitude…They say he doesn’t duck [expletive], he ain’t scared of [expletive], he tough’, and that is what is going to keep you in the NBA…He is going to be challenged every day, yeah, but he likes to go right back at Mother[expletive].”

That is high praise for the OKC Thunder big man who spent his summer working out with NBA veterans last year prior to his injury. That seems to bode well for Holmgren living up to the hype, and the team around him developing to this point has taken some of the added pressure off of the rookie center.