Oklahoma City Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren met with local media on Thursday for the first time since suffering his Lisfranc injury. Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault also spoke about Holmgren’s injury.
Holmgren suffered the rare basketball foot injury during a Seattle Pro-Am in August. Following the event, the Thunder announced that the 20-year-old will miss his entire rookie season.
Throughout the presser, Holmgren sounded optimistic about his long-term return and views the season-ending injury as just a setback he will overcome.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the press conference as Holmgren continues to rehab his foot injury and the team continues to hold training camp.
Chet Holmgren: “Recovery’s going great.
I’m up here at the facility from 8-2. Then supporting the guys in their second practice.
Trying to soak up all the knowledge.”
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) September 29, 2022
Chet Holmgren: “I’ve never had a serious injury in my life. So I had nothing to compare it to.. I didn’t imagine anything like this for sure.”
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) September 29, 2022
Chet Holmgren says got good advice from Joel Embiid about going through an injury his rookie year.
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) September 29, 2022
Chet Holmgren on criticism of NBA guys playing at pro-am events:
“There’s freedom of speech and criticism comes along with anything. Basketball players are going to play basketball. You have to feed the love of the game. I don’t want an injury like this to take away from that.”
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) September 29, 2022
Chet Holmgren on criticisms over NBA players playing in Pro-Am’s: “At the end of the day, basketball players are gonna play basketball.” pic.twitter.com/GedpFEGAsX
— Clemente Almanza (@CAlmanza1007) September 29, 2022