Chet Holmgren sat down with Boardroom to talk about his rookie season in comparison to Victor Wembanyama. The pair are the two protagonists of a hotly contested Rookie of the Year race, with Holmgren sharing his opinions on the fight for the award.
“I feel like that’s a loaded question. First of all, all credit to Wemby and what he’s doing. Having the argument of winning vs. not winning, sacrificing for the team vs. having more opportunity, and what some might think are higher level players on a team vs. not. We’re both having great years. I think the voting is in the eye of the beholder. The input from our season is what they’re going to judge it on.”
Holmgren made it clear that he was focusing on winning a championship with the OKC Thunder.
“At the end of the day, win, lose, draw, the focus will still be on our season continuing on and what I need to do to help the team continue going where we wanna go.”
Reporter: "Victor Wembanyama has done staggering things… Do you think you should be ROTY?”
Chet Holmgren: “I feel like that’s a loaded question… We’re both having great years… I think the voting is in the eye of the beholder.” 👀
(via @boardroom)pic.twitter.com/03zx0nXj1r
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) April 18, 2024
Wembanyama averaged 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 3.6 blocks over his rookie season, leading the NBA outright in blocks per game as well as total blocks. Holmgren had a smaller role on the No. 1 seed Thunder but averaged 16.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 2.3 blocks over the season, emerging as their third-best player behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams.
Wemby’s season is too statistically incredible to even contend with. Holmgren would have been an easy Rookie of the Year winner in almost any other season, but Wemby’s production is too insane to not reward. The ROTY is usually not awarded with keeping team record in mind because these are rookie players, so Wemby likely takes it.
The fact that this won’t be a unanimous win for Wemby is credit enough to Chet for the incredible season he had. From their battles on their U-18 national teams to now in the same Conference in the NBA, this is just the beginning of what could be a historic NBA rivalry.
Victor Wembanyama Hoping To Progress A Lot More
Wembanyama proved his status as a fringe top-20 player in the NBA at worst after his rookie season, which is an incredible achievement. Despite the rapid strides he made through his first NBA season, Wembanyama believes we are yet to see a lot more from him. He claimed he’s only 15% of the player he thinks he’ll be in his prime.
“I would say that I am currently at 15% between my first NBA game and what I hope will be my prime.”
If Wembanyama has room for 85% more improvement on his game, it’ll be impossible to look at him as anything less than one of the top three players in the NBA, if not the best by a longshot. Holmgren might not carry the same hype as Wemby, but he’s capable of matching him production-wise.
Chet is also already on a winning team, so he’s going to have a chance to vindicate his contributions with team success instantly, as compared to Wemby, who’s inevitably going to be called empty stats by a talking head in the next two seasons.
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