Chet Holmgren, shocker, was no match for Nikola Jokic defensively. The reigning Finals MVP dropped 28 points, 14 rebounds and five on 12-of-16 shooting across just 30 minutes of court time in the Denver Nuggets' beatdown of the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, proving much too big, strong and skilled for Holmgren during their first NBA matchup.
Getting dominated by Jokic, obviously, isn't exclusive Oklahoma City's notoriously lithe rookie big man. Jokic is the best player in the world and one of the several best offensive players of all-time, without a weakness to his game while maintaining numerous inherent advantages even basketball's defenders have proven helpless to stop. Remember what Jokic did to Anthony Davis one-on-one in the Western Conference Finals before the Los Angeles Lakers were relegated to guarding him with Rui Hachimura and LeBron James?
Holmgren wasn't the first opposing center to be summarily out-classed by Jokic in 2023-24, and certainly won't be the last. After the game, though, the Nuggets superstar provided Holmgren some advice on how to continue improving going forward: Get “fatter,” of course. Holmgren offered a typically amusing yet thoughtful response to Jokic's constructive criticism, noting the challenges of his initial acclimation to NBA competition.
“It's hard to get fatter when you're not fat, so gotta start somewhere I guess,” Holmgren said. “Obviously I haven't played in the NBA before, so there's gonna be a lot of learning happening. It's night to night, and different matchups bring different challenges and different adjustments. I feel like it's not one person's job to do one thing out there; it's a collective effort from all five all night long.”
Chet Holmgren looks like a two-way star for Oklahoma City
It's a testament Holmgren's fantastic start to his rookie season that there was any notion he'd be able to slow down Jokic over the weekend. No rookie has impacted winning on a game-by-game, possession-by-possession basis more than Holmgren, and it's not particularly close. He's averaging 15.0 points, 6.3 rebounds, two assists, one steal and 2.8 blocks in 26.5 minutes per game while shooting 58.8% on twos and a red-hot 62.5% from beyond the arc.
Holmgren won't set the record for three-point accuracy, obviously, but his scorching initial proficiency as a long-range shooter speaks to how the first-year center warps the game on both sides of the ball. How many 7'1 bigs in the world can swallow penetrators at the rim then make plays like a guard as the ball changes sides? Less than a week into his NBA career, Holmgren is already making those rare two-way sequences seem frighteningly routine.
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Holmgren has been everything the Thunder could've wanted and more since the regular season tipped off. Even if Victor Wembanyama or another first-year peer eventually passes him in the Rookie of the Year race, it won't change the fact Holmgren seems likely to drive success alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Oklahoma City's other young building blocks for years and years to come.
Would he fare better guarding singular behemoths like Jokic and Joel Embiid with additional weight? No doubt. But Holmgren is still several a long way from his physical prime at 21, embraces physicality like a player 50 pounds heavier and has clearly put on plenty of good weight since leaving Gonzaga in 2022. Additional weight and strength, not “fat,”seem bound to come for Chet Holmgren in time—just like the upstart Thunder's status as top-tier contenders.
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