If there is one player everyone is expecting in the NBA next year, it’s Chet Holmgren. The Gonzaga player with a unique game for his excessive physique is coming out of a very good freshman season with Gonzaga and intends to do the same as of next year, within the big League.
# ARE PROFIL GROSSO MODO
- Age: 20 years old. The day of his birth, FC Lorient made the front page of the team, as he was born a long time ago.
- Position : Pivot or unicorn, we hesitate.
- Team: Gonzaga Bulldogs
- Height: 213 centimeters
- Weight: 88 kglike Jordan Clarkson.
- Wingspan: 229 centimeters, the length of my dining room table. Yes I checked.
- Statistics 2021-22: 14.2 points at 60.7% shooting including 39% from afar, 9.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 3.6 blocks in 26.3 minutes on average over the season.
- Comparison : Dirk Nowitzki and ceiling, Kristaps Porzingis and plancher ?
- Prévision TrashTalk : 2nd place.
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Chet Thomas Holmgren was born and raised in Minnesota, and more specifically in the beautiful city of Minneapolis. His father Dave was not a great basketball player, even though he played for the Minnesota Gophers. However, he became famous for having recorded all of his son’s matches with a camcorder since he was in sixth grade. The boy is growing very quickly, and everyone suspects that Chet will eventually reach 2m10 like his dad. The leader he was at the beginning of his college years is transformed as he grows into a dominant pivot with a new style of play. Chet kept his guarding skills while exceeding the symbolic bar of 7 feet. From there, everything accelerates and the native of Minneapolis arouses the curiosity of the crowds, position 5 is propelled to the front of the world stage. Alongside Jalen Suggs for his penultimate year of high school on the side of Minnehaha, the duo explodes and the state of Minnesota becomes the ultimate sensation of American high school. Between them and Paige Bueckers, the best player in the country that year, no one can compete with them.
After the departure of his friend Suggs for Gonzaga, the bro Chet does not change high school and always has fun. And seeing the Bulldogs’ March Madness 2021 campaign, the big guy thinks there’s something to do the following year. After being voted MVP of the 2021 U19 World Cup in Latvia, the Gatorade High School Men’s Basketball Player of The Year 2020-21 therefore decides to join the program based in the city of Spokane (Washington) to help Gonzaga finally win the coveted national title. His first university season accompanied by the handsome trucker mustache of Drew Timme and Canadian talent Andrew Nembhard is going like clockwork. Position 5 is elected Freshman and Defender of the Year of his conference, he is even unanimously elected within the First Team All-WCC. Nationally, he became an All-American Second Team member alongside Jaden Ivey and Jabari Smith Jr. He will also be like his colleagues Paolo Banchero and Jabari Smith Jr. finalist but not winner of the Karl Malone Award. After winning the title of their conference, the Bulldogs fly away for March Madness with in their luggage the resentment of the lost final last year and the pressure due to their seed 1. In the same table as them stands Duke, but Gonzaga will be eliminated before meeting them. Texas Tech will cruelly end Chet Holmgren’s title dreams at Sweet Sixteen. Before moving on, we’ll let you watch some highlights from one of his regular season games.
Chet Holmgren put up a RIDICULOUS stat line tonight ????
???? 20 PTS
???? 17 REB
???? 6 AST
???? 5 BLK pic.twitter.com/R5rsV2lrQb— ESPN (@espn) February 6, 2022
Chet has a real unique profile that has never been seen before in the NBA. We have seen players labeled “unicorn” without really being so, but this time the qualifier is very well used. With such a large size, being able to shoot, dribble and pass so fluidly is unreal. Against more powerful racquets, speed is one of the only possible means to compensate for the deficit of kilos. So Chet runs very fast for an inside of 2m13, and is unstoppable coast-to-coast. On placed play, the interior manages to shoot from anywhere on the field. From the parking lot, the Gonzaga player aligns 39% success at a rather high volume for a position 5 with very good shooting mechanics: 3.3 attempts per match on average for a boy who is supposed to squat the rackets, that’s very strong. In terms of inside and mid-range shooting, Mr. Holmgren managed to make his ball possession very effective. Whether it’s catch-and-shoot, pick-and-pop, fade-away, Chet has missed very few shots this season, and reads the game extremely well in those situations. On the other side of the field, the native of Minneapolis is very dynamic in defense, he never balks at the task and uses it mentally to be even more destructive then in attack. His instincts as a blocker are exceptional, and on interceptions, the interior does not hesitate to jump on the balls then rush on the counter-attack without losing the ball to in conclusion martyrize the circle.
CHET HOLMGREN COAST-TO-COAST SLAM ???? @ZagMBB pic.twitter.com/DmAy8cwdFk
– SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 25, 2022
We are not going to close our eyes to this, but the physical remains the biggest weak point of Chet Holmgren. During the regular season, the pivot had more competition in training with Drew Timme than in games. But in March Madness, it was not the same. Against Memphis and his physical beast Jalen Duren, Chet was more than beaten up in the racket, the duel only went one way. So it is normal to wonder how Gonzaga’s pivot will be able to resist against the most barracks pivots in the League, like Steven Adams or Bam Adebayo. His creation of shots for him and the others will also be impacted: simple passing and dribbling in the NCAA will no longer be in the NBA. There aren’t many big men with his build in the League, let alone able to hold it together physically. If many compare him to Kristaps Porzingis, we hope he won’t get injured so much. If we continue on the offensive side, Chet Holmgren was never a born scorer compared to his competitors in the race for the first pick. His average points over the season shows it very well, the interior is not going to be the type of player who will claim the ball on several possessions in a row and catch fire by putting 20 pawns in one half. As a pivot, he just can’t have that kind of role. But next to equally promising players, like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at OKC or Franz Wagner at Orlando, Chet can become a very reliable second or third offensive option.
# SO IF WE SUMMARIZE…
Points forts :
- Defense
- outside shooting
- QI basket
Weak points :
- Physique
- Will he be the first offensive option?
- Creating shots for others and himself
WHAT DOES IT SAY IN THE MOCK DRAFTS?
- ESPN announces Chet Holmgren in 2nd position.
- Bleacher Report announces Chet Holmgren in 2nd position.
- The Athletic announces Chet Holmgren in 2nd position.
- Draft Room announces Chet Holmgren in 1st position.
- Tankathon announces Chet Holmgren in 2nd position.
Very surely chosen in first or second position next Thursday, Chet Holmgren has the opportunity to become the highest pick in the history of Gonzaga, after Adam Morrison chosen in third during the 2006 Draft. Announced on the side of the Thunder, the potential new diamond should arrive in the ideal franchise to further polish itself, and take arms in the weight room incidentally.
