The Oklahoma City Thunder are making the race for the top seed in the Western Conference look a bit like a joke.
At the time of this writing OKC has a 12.5-game lead on the “challengers” for the top spot in the West in the Houston Rockets. Given that the Thunder have won 4 in a row, have won 9 of their last 10 and have yet to lose double-digit games at home or on the road this season… it feels safe to say the road to the NBA Finals runs through Oklahoma City.
Sometimes as sports fans we make declarations or proclamations like this and they blow up in our face. Jinxes is what some call them. Generally, the point sometimes is that nothing is official until it is, well, official. The ink has to be dry on the proverbial contract.
In my experience interviewing professional athletes this is how most tend to go about it all. They don’t want to create any bulletin board material for anyone else and want to play it safe. When I had the chance to interview the Thunder’s Chet Holmgren this week, I assumed it would be similar. It was not.
To be clear Chet was not walking around making hot takes and declaring a title is inevitable for OKC. But when we began discussing where Oklahoma City is positioned at the moment I did my best to dance around the subject. I said it all without saying it all, the “all” being that the Thunder are right on course and where you want to be as an NBA team in the middle of March (obviously there is a lot to go… see I just did it again).
As I was trying not to poke the bear, Chet interrupted me and proved that he is as cool off of the court as he is talented on it.
“We’re obviously in a great situation. You can say it. You don’t have to be scared to say it… we also understand… we know we have a long way to go to keep getting better to put ourselves in the best situation to reach our goal at the end of the season. Which at the end of the day is to win the last game. We understand that we’re nowhere near where we have to be so we have to keep working.”
Again, Chet hardly guaranteed anything, but this is rare in my experience. For Holmgren to be blunt and acknowledge the reality of the situation was cool. I was impressed!
As I was expressing that sentiment he interrupted me (he is Chet Holmgren so I allowed it) and made it even cooler.
“If you asked anybody where they would want to be in the standings, they’d be lying to you if they said anything else. You don’t have to act like that’s not what everybody else would say.”
If you follow the NBA at all then you know that Holmgren is a different kind of superstar. His willingness to tell it like it is separates him and in many ways separates the Thunder from the field.
On the subject of Chet’s teammates… he joined me on behalf of a commercial that he did with two of them. Chet, Jalen Willliams and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander starred in a commercial for AT&T that launched with March Madness. There is another one from AT&T that centers around the BFFs from the Villanova team that won it all. Interestingly that Nova team won the title in San Antonio where this year’s Final Four is.
You can watch the commercial with Chet, Jalen and SGA below.
Our thanks to AT&T and to Chet Holmgren for the time!
