{"id":133609,"date":"2025-04-10T20:20:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T00:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=133609"},"modified":"2025-04-10T20:20:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T00:20:53","slug":"thunder-chet-holmgren-celtics-kristaps-porzingis-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/10\/thunder-chet-holmgren-celtics-kristaps-porzingis-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Chet Holmgren Might Be the True No. 2 Option in OKC"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a strong likelihood that the East’s Boston Celtics and West’s\u00a0<\/span>Oklahoma City Thunder<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will collide in the grand finale of a crazy NBA season. Many fans, NBA experts, and media voices have the Thunder and the Celtics meeting in the championship finals. Both teams have formidable rosters\u2014strengths on defense, offense, off the bench, not to mention coaching. However, when it comes to individual play in each opposing jersey, the Celtics have a clear-cut secondary option. As for the Thunder, ESPN NBA analyst\u00a0<\/span>Kendrick Perkins<\/span><\/a>\u00a0believes the secondary option is not who many would naturally select. Perkins believes the No.2 option is\u00a0<\/span>Chet Holmgren<\/span><\/a>, not\u00a0<\/span>Jalen Williams<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chet Holmgren Might Be the True No. 2 Option in OKC<\/h2>\n

Chet Holmgren in OKC similar to Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is in Boston, says ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins<\/h3>\n

Aside from the\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>–<\/span>Luka Doncic<\/span><\/a>\u00a0tandem in Los Angeles, <\/span>Jaylen Brown<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is the NBA’s best secondary option to his team’s first,\u00a0<\/span>Jayson Tatum<\/span><\/a>. One could argue that Brown isn’t even that, but instead 1B to Tatum’s 1A. Whichever way you view Brown in the hierarchy of Boston’s roster, Brown is clear-cut in that role. Shifting your eyes over to the West in Oklahoma City, at first, Williams\u2014Jalen, not\u00a0<\/span>Jaylin [Williams]<\/span><\/a>\u2014is usually regarded as the next best option behind\u00a0<\/span>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/span><\/a>. If you hold that view, it’s entirely fair and close to unarguable unless you’re Perkins, who disagrees with that notion.\u00a0<\/span>On a recent episode of the\u00a0<\/span><\/a>Road Trippin’\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/em>podcast<\/span><\/a>, Perkins argued that Williams is not OKC’s secondary option but Holmgren instead. Perkins also spoke to Holmgren’s role in the upcoming playoffs, comparing him to how Boston used\u00a0<\/span>Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is<\/span><\/a>\u00a0last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be Chet Holmgren…I don\u2019t believe in Jalen Williams like that. Not yet. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s a guy that can go get you 30, 35, but I believe that Chet can get you 25 and 27 and 14, and four blocks. <\/em>And when I think about a second option, what I would do these next four games, I would emphasize, let\u2019s put Chet in action.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMeaning if it\u2019s pick and rolling, pick and popping, let\u2019s try and force mismatches, let\u2019s force-feed him on the low blocks. Something along the lines of what Boston does with Kristaps Porzingis. <\/em>We talk about him shooting threes, but last year Kristaps Porzingis was the best post-up player in the league, in front of [Nikola] Jokic<\/a>, [Joel] Embiid<\/a>, AD [Anthony Davis<\/a>], Giannis [Antetokounmpo]<\/a>. It was him…can you utilize Chet like that, absolutely.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Chet could make his NBA “entrance” in the playoffs<\/h3>\n

Let’s be fair: Holmgren is a budding superstar in the NBA, but he’s not there yet, and it could take a couple more seasons to arrive. That said, the upcoming playoffs are a prime opportunity for Holmgren to enter the superstar atmosphere. His size, length, shooting, and overall skillset put him on the trajectory, and perhaps he is challenging Williams for that secondary option role. Consider this: if OKC were to pull off a huge trade this offseason, who is more likely to be in the package out of Oklahoma? Williams, or Holmgren? Odds are, it’s Williams. Of course, this is all hypothetical, but it’s also why Perkins might be on to something with his take.<\/p>\n

Holmgren is about to have a chance at mimicking what the once-upon-a-time “Unicorn” presently does for the Celtics. Time will tell if Chet can stand up to the likes of\u00a0<\/span>Joki\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0or even Porzi\u0146\u0123is if it comes to it. Hopefully, NBA fans will get a chance to find out. Either way, these playoffs should be Holmgren’s coming out party, like this season has been for the Thunder.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a strong likelihood that the East’s Boston Celtics and West’s\u00a0Oklahoma City Thunder\u00a0will collide in the grand finale of a crazy NBA season. Many fans, NBA experts, and media voices have the Thunder and the Celtics meeting in the championship finals. Both teams have formidable rosters\u2014strengths on defense, offense, off the bench, not to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":133610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1608,5,62],"tags":[240,4292,306,4609,450,4049,798,3215,138,38,1133,72,1489],"class_list":["post-133609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thunder","category-basketball","category-celtics","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-jalen-williams","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-jaylin-williams","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-kendrick-perkins","tag-kristaps-porzingis","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133609"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133623,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133609\/revisions\/133623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}