Oklahoma City Thunder center Chet Holmgren missed out on the NBA Rookie of the Year award because of San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama, although that shouldn’t take away the fact that he played a great season in 2023-24.
During his recent appearance on the Road Trippin’ podcast, Holmgren was asked whether he felt more deserving of the prestigious award over Wembanyama, and he kept it real with his answer.
“It just comes down to who has more voters that believe in their side of the criteria, I guess,” Wembanyama said via Spurs Central on X (formerly known as Twitter). “I don’t think Wemby was unfair in winning rookie of the year.”
“You can come up with 50 pros and cons for each of us on things outside of statistics. Just completely random things like who is on our team, what we are playing for, and how much attention is placed on us. You can come up with a million things for each of us to try to skew decisions. Like I mean, all credit to him for a great season and everything. And you know, we’re not rookies anymore,” he added.
Chet Holmgren’s 2023-24 campaign with the Oklahoma City Thunder
After sitting out the 2022-23 season due to a Lisfranc injury, Chet Holmgren bounced back big in 2023-24, averaging 16.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 2.3 blocks per game on 53/37/79 shooting splits. He averaged 15.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 2.5 blocks per game in the postseason.
The 22-year-old big helped the Oklahoma City Thunder clinch the best record in the Western Conference (57-25). They made it to the Western Conference semifinals but were defeated by the Dallas Mavericks in six games.
The Oklahoma City Thunder revamped their roster this summer by adding Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein through free agency, and they also re-signed Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins to multi-year deals.
