The Oklahoma City Thunder are building one of the best young cores in the entire NBA. While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander remains the face of the franchise as a 31-point-per-game scorer that finished top-five in MVP voting a season ago, anticipation continues to mount for the debut of the 2nd overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, Chet Holmgren. His fellow 2022 class members are already off to stellar starts as Jaylin Williams provided solid minutes as a starter, Ousmane Dieng showed flashes between injuries, and Jalen Williams finished runner-up for the Rookie of the Year award. If Holmgren can live up to the hype alongside his 2022 class, Josh Giddey, and Gilgeous-Alexander, the sky is the limit in Bricktown.
Chet Holmgren is currently doing a media tour going from podcast to podcast, chopping it up with former players. This time he visited with the All the Smoke Podcast on SHOWTIME, hosted by Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
The OKC Thunder have a ton of depth, and Chet Holmgren is excited to join the fold.
Stephen Jackson asked Chet Holmgren, “, Cason Wallace, Lu Dort, Giddey, Jalen Williams, how do you feel about next year?” before Holmgren had a chance to answer; Matt Barnes chimed in with praise for the OKC Thunder “Man, y’all have a young, good team!”
Chet Holmgren agreed, saying, “Man, I am excited. Our management does a great job of putting great guys in the locker room, and also on the staff. I am just so excited because we are all so young, everybody has room to grow. Shai everybody saw what he did last year, but he just turned 25 two days ago. It is just going to be on us to get in the lab together and build that chemistry and put the pieces together.”
When asked about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren praised the fact he comes off as “a just a regular person, he laughs and jokes with us the same as the last man on the roster…He is a great leader.”
Holmgren was asked about rookie of the year runner-up Jalen Williams “I knew he could hoop .”
That set up the depth question when asked by Matt Barnes, who will break out this season for the OKC Thunder, Chet Holmgren said: “We just got so much talent on our team, it is going to be a new guy every single game…we got dudes who did not get the most opportunity last year, or just got with the team when you watch them some games you are just going to realize this guy can hoop, we got dudes!”
Chet Holmgren highlighted Ousmane Dieng, Tre Mann, and rookie Cason Wallace while mentioning the depth of this roster. That will be the trick to success for Mark Daigneault’s club, the OKC Thunder will continue to dip deep into their bench on a nightly bases, and not only will it keep the team fresh, but it will also highlight the talent on this roster.