Thunder big Chet Holmgren could reach historic milestone as soon as his second year

In just his first season of activity, Chet Holmgren proved to be well worth the hype that surrounded him upon being selected second overall by the OKC Thunder during the 2022 NBA Draft.

From his inside-out scoring abilities to his high-end defensive chops, the club's new-age slim reaper served as a key contributor within coach Mark Daigneault's top-seeded rotation and finished off his debut campaign with sensational averages of 16.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 2.3 blocks while shooting 53.0 percent from the floor and 37.0 percent from deep.

As a result of his efforts, the 22-year-old ended up earning an All-Rookie First-Team nod, finished second in the running for NBA Rookie of the Year, and, now heading into his sophomore run in Oklahoma City, seems destined to enter into the franchise's record books.

Chet Holmgren could enter top-10 in all-time Thunder blocks this season

Through 82 games played last season, Holmgren proved to be a defensive nightmare for opposing players, as he registered an elite 109.2 defensive rating and totaled a whopping 190 blocks, placing him ninth and second, respectively, in the association out of starters who saw 50 or more games of action on the year, according to NBA.com.

Now, assuming Holmgren can keep up this level of production during his highly anticipated second season, there's a strong and highly realistic possibility that the youngster will find his way into the top 10 in one of the franchise's prestigious all-time statistical categories, as he's only 173 swats away from surpassing current 10-place holder, Rashard Lewis' 362 total blocks from throughout his Thunder tenure.

The unquestioned anchor down in the interior for Oklahoma City's fourth-ranked defensive unit, the big man's 7-foot-1 frame with a jaw-dropping 7-foot-6 wingspan was invaluable for the franchise, as he rejected and altered shots at an astonishing rate in just his first season of play.

While manning the middle for the Thunder in 2023-24, Holmgren defended the second-most shots at the rim in the entire league with a total of 615. Despite this exhausting level of usage, he still wound up holding his opponents to a mere 52.8 percent conversion clip on such attempts, which, per NBA.com, ranked seventh among 71 total players who defended a minimum of 200 shots near the basket.

This type of defensive efficiency only makes onlookers and pundits more excited to see what Chet Holmgren could have in store heading into year number two. Some have already gone as far as to predict he'll go on to lead the league in blocks in 2024-25 which, over the last five years, has averaged out to 202 total swats or, if translated to a per-82 game scale, 2.4 a night.

Based on what he managed to do in his first season with the Thunder, such a turnout seems more than manageable, which, in turn, suggests he could easily make his way into the top 10 of blocks in franchise history as soon as this year's campaign.