On Chet Holmgren's season reimbursement: What his foot injury means to the Thunder and him

On Chet Homegren's season reimbursement: What his foot injury means to both the Thunder and the star rookie

What will be the impact of ending Chet Holmgren's foot injury throughout the season?

The Oklahoma Thunder announced Thursday that the NBA draft pick will miss his first season as a professional due to a right foot injury while playing in the CrawsOver semi-professional league game on Saturday.

Although Homegren's premature injury deprived him of a chance to play and gave Thunder fans a chance to catch a glimpse of the team's all-time highest-ranking player since they signed Durant before moving to Oklahoma, it can be inferred from observing the career trajectory of other high-ranking rookies who were injured in their first season that the injury should not have caused too much damage to his development.

However, Homegren's absence could affect the Thunder's prospects for future seasons. Although several core players in the lineup are already in place, oklahoma City is likely to spend another year competing for lotto draft picks without him.

In addition, the high level of attention to Holmgren's injury and the timing of his injury could change the attitude of NBA teams toward semi-professional games that have become increasingly popular in recent years. So let's analyze the impact and significance of this injury together.

There were a number of stars who had similar experiences before Homegren was injured

After Homegren missed his entire first NBA season — which is clearly not to be considered his rookie season, so he still qualifies for best rookie in 2023-24 — he became part of the team of top three picks who missed his first season with injury since 2007.

A total of three champions missed their entire first season during this time: Greg Auden (2007), Blake Griffin (2008) and Ben Simmons (2016). We also saw the third overall pick from 2014, Joel Embiid, who missed two full seasons due to a fractured right foot scaphoid bone.

In terms of long-term impact, the results of each injury are different. Auden's knee micro-fracture surgery before making his NBA debut was a big factor in the shortening of his career, and Embiid also struggled with injuries for years before being able to unleash his potential as one of the league's most dominant players.

Still, these players have one thing in common, which is that they have played as well as expected after their comeback. Both Griffin and Simmons won Rookie of the Year, though the latter caused some controversy. Embiid, on the other hand, was slightly at the second place on the rookie list because he had only played 31 games as a rookie.

In fact, the draft picks who missed their first season due to injury were so good that a few years ago I even answered an emailed question about whether the success of these rookies meant that all rookies should be suspended for a year before they officially played. I certainly wouldn't say that, but when it comes to predictions for Howlum Glenn's comeback in 2023-24, the experiences of his predecessors are inspiring.

Is Homegren's risk of injury really high?

Unfortunately, Homegren's season reimbursement will confirm that his 7-foot-195-pound build greatly increases his risk of injury.

Homegren is one of the skinniest players in modern NBA history. As can be seen from some of the physical data – although he did not participate in the body side of the joint trial – he has a body mass index (BMI) of 19.4, ranking third among the current players, behind his two Thunder teammates (Alexei Pokushevsky: 19.1, and Usman Dion: 19.3).

In addition to his two teammates, only one player since the NBA-ABA merger has a lower BMI than Homegren: 7'7-inch defensive expert Manute Ball, with a BMI of 17.0 and weighing 200 pounds. But Ball played at least 71 games in each of the NBA's first seven seasons, and four of them even had more than 80.

Only a handful of other interior players in history have had a BMI below 20. Keith Krauss, who is 7'3" and 212 pounds (BMI 19.7), played three seasons off the bench for the Los Angeles Clippers. Ron Behagen played as a big forward for 7 years with a stature of 6 feet 9,185 pounds (BMI 19.8) and played more than 80 games in three of his five seasons as a main rotation. Striker Mitch Johnson, nicknamed "Rubber Band Man," appeared incredibly durable after his second season in 1975-76 became a rotation. Johnson was 6'10" tall and 190 pounds (BMI 19.9), and in the next six seasons he missed only three games until 1984-85, when he was 32, and never had fewer than 76 games.

Inevitably, The comparable sample size of Homegren is limited, but the recorded data so far show no evidence to support the idea that his stature puts him at greater intrinsic risk of injury.

So how should Oklahoma City spend this season?

With Homegren's absence, the Thunder's 2022-23 roster will be very similar to the 2021-22 lineup. While Oklahoma City also joined a pair of first-round picks, Dion and guard Jaylen Williams, as well as second-round pick Jeering Williams. But of that group, only lotto show Jaylen Williams seems likely to contribute on the court right away, adding to the possibility that the Thunder will be at the bottom of the NBA rankings for three consecutive seasons.

Of course, there are still variables. The first is how much progress we will see from Oklahoma City's talented young players. Of the nine Thunder players who played at least 1,000 minutes last season, all remained on the team, and only bench forward Kenridge Williams was over 24. As a result, we expect Oklahoma City players to come to next season at a higher level.

Another change to look forward to is how many games this season, especially in the second half of the season, you can see these main players. Last season, only one Thunder player (forward Darius Bezley) played in more than 61 games. Beazley played a total of 69 games to be precise. And Oklahoma City's best player, guard Shay Kyrgyz Alexander, has played just 91 of the 154 games in total in the past two seasons. If he can play about 70 games in the 2022-23 season, the Thunder will be much more competitive.

Meanwhile, over the past two years, Oklahoma City has been unusually "lucky" in similarly scored games. Last season, the Thunder lost 8.1 points per game, close to the Orlando Magic (8.0 points) and houston Rockets (8.5 points), but because they achieved a 7-6 record in the final point difference of less than or equal to three points, they were able to win two games and four more games than Houston.

The phenomenon was even more extreme in the 2020-21 season, when Oklahoma City averaged a net loss of 10.6 points per game and wasn't the worst team in the league because there were three teams that won fewer games than they did. If the Thunder continue to improve their performance in a matchless game, although it is possible to achieve similar results to last season, their combat strength will certainly improve significantly.

While it would be frustrating to go through another bottom-of-the-line season, Oklahoma City will receive another high-pick pick, with the player selected to play alongside Homegren in 2023-24, which could push the Thunder's rapid rise to the playoffs.

Will professional players – or should they reduce their appearances in semi-professional leagues in the future?

Given how well NBA teams protect players' long-term futures, it's interesting to watch how public opinion moves after Homegren's injury — especially in Saturday's game, where the likes of LeBron James, Jason Tatum and Paul Bancello subsequently left the court early due to court conditions. From the perspective of a fan who came to watch Saturday's game, I think the problem of increasing air condensation (creating slippery floors) on the pitch was more noticeable than Holmgren's injury at the opening quarter of the game.

There was also a series of unusual developments in Saturday's game, with LeBron making his debut in Seattle in 15 years, resulting in a stadium full of people and crowds hovering outside the arena, a scene that made it difficult for the tournament organizers to open the doors of the arena to allow the air to circulate. This, combined with seattle's unusually humid weather, eventually overwhelmed the stadium's air conditioning. But in late July, spectators who also watched Bancello and Homegren play at CrawlsOver were able to leave unharmed.

Still, NBA teams are likely to use Homegren's injury as an opportunity to tighten playing restrictions in semi-professional leagues that are currently beyond their control. While everything homecoming for Homegren's appearance on Saturday is within the NBA-approved semi-professional league rules, those rules could change as the league and its players' unions begin to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements.

But I hope the league doesn't overreact to an unfortunate injury. Serious injuries in semi-professional basketball are rare — InStreetClothes.com injury specialist Jeff Stotts points to Brandon Knight's 2017 preclusive cruciate ligament tear and season reimbursement as a case in point — proof that players must play a certain number of games in the offseason to help them adjust their form and improve their strengths.

Semi-professional leagues have received so much attention due to their openness to the public that there will even be live streamings of such games, but that doesn't make those games any different from everything that happens in the summer in the NBA.

And with some sadness, in a recent tweet by Homegren — posted after his first appearance in the CrawlsOver League — he also expressed his agreement with atatlanta Hawks guard DeJuntai Murray, who previously expressed his opinion on playing in the semi-professional league, which he believes could give fans who can't afford NBA tickets a chance to see their favorite players in the summer.

So let's look forward to the continuation of these kinds of games, and also look forward to the early return of Homegren.