Thunder big man Chet Holmgren admits that spending an entire season rehabbing a foot injury was tough, as he told Sam Yip of Hoops Hype.
“Anything like that is gonna be challenging for anybody, but I feel like I’ve stayed the course really well, and I didn’t let my focus, attention to detail or confidence waver,” he said. “It was a challenging year, but I feel like I made the most out of it.”
Holmgren could battle Victor Wembanyama and the rest of the 2023 rookie class for the Rookie of the Year award, since he sat out last season. However, he’s only interested in team goals.
“My focus is on helping this team win games,” he said. “Things like Rookie of the Year, and everything else are not important, so I’m just focused on helping the team. Everything else follows the team’s success.”
We have more from the Northwest Division:
- Despite all the assets that Thunder executive Sam Presti has hoarded in recent years, Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman doubts he’ll cash a bunch of them in to land a star. Mussatto believes OKC will most likely focus on retaining Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams and Holmgren on rookie scale extensions when they’re eligible, as the team did with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
- The Timberwolves have named Ernest Scott as head coach of the Iowa Wolves, the team’s G League affiliate, according to a team press release. Nathan Bubes has been named an assistant coach for Iowa, while Michael DiBenedetto will have to dual title of assistant coach and director of operations for the G League team. Scott replaces Jeff Newton, who was previously promoted to assistant coach/quality control coach for the NBA team.
- Kris Dunn could begin the season in the Jazz‘s starting lineup, Sarah Todd of the Deseret News opines. Todd views Dunn as Utah’s best point guard. However, with Talen Horton-Tucker, Collin Sexton and rookie Keyonte George also in the mix, head coach Will Hardy could go a number of different ways with that key position. Dunn signed a multi-year contract with the Jazz in March.