An analysis of Chet Holmgren's handle
Chet has gone up a gear
The Thunder’s win against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday maintained a perfect start to the season in what was a high-profile match-up. A lot of has been made of the rivalry between Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama but it was all business as the Thunder cruised to another win.
The Thunder now have a bit of momentum on their side and the prospect of going 10-0 is not so far-fetched. In the next six games, the Thunder’s toughest games are away at Denver and against the Warriors at home. Win both of those games and a marker will have been laid down in the Western Conference.
Holmgren’s improved handle
Chet Holmgren has got off to a hot start on both ends of the floor. His defense has been frankly excellent but I want to focus on his improvement as a ball-handler. Chet’s dribble looks more controlled and certainly much more agile. If you look at footage from last season’s tournament game against the Warriors, you can easily identify where his flaws were.
In this play, he catches the pass from Shai and immediately widens his base to negate the ball pressure applied by Draymond Green. The wide stance is fine for protecting the ball but using this stance sacrifices pop out of the triple-threat position. The Thunder use an inverted screen with Cason Wallace and Chet gets Stephen Curry as a match-up which should in theory be favourable to him.
However, the wide stance means that Chet cannot attack the screen as quickly as he would like and his dribble is forced wide by Curry. By this point, Steph has done his job perfectly. He has walled off the interior successfully and has forced Chet into a blind alley.
Holmgren attempts to break out of the narrowing area of the court with a power dribble but fails and the ball bounces out of bounds. The power dribble is executed okay but the dribble is chest-high and Curry has enough time to force the out of bounds.
I pulled this play from the Thunder’s first game of the season against the Denver Nuggets and the improvement is marked.
On this play, Chet sets a ghost screen for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander which draws Christian Braun and Nikola Jokic into the action before stepping behind the arc on the weak-side.
At this point, the Thunder have an overload on the left-side of the floor with Holmgren on the perimeter, J-Dub in the deep corner and Dort in the dunker’s spot. Denver have Gordon on the backline guarding Dort and Porter Jr hanging out.
Chet catches the ball and immediately, his feet are within the frame of his shoulders, ready to attack off the bounce. The positioning of his feet is textbook, the feet are splayed so that Holmgren can explode in either direction.
As soon as Porter Jr’s commits to guarding the off-hand, Holmgren springs the other direction and drives at the defender. The dribble is low and held at hip-height until Chet is able to keep Porter Jr at arms’ length. Once Holmgren creates the distance, he uses the power dribble to turn the corner and put Porter Jr in jail.
The Nuggets sink down and collapse on the painted area but the damage has already been done, Chet is in the lane and in prime position to make a play with the basketball. Finally, he uses overload to good effect by dumping the ball down into Luguentz Dort for a straight-forward finish.
The improvements in Holmgren’s base and his foot position have made him a much more effective threat off the dribble. Already this season, we have seen Holmgren get unassisted looks for himself by taking defenders on the dribble and finishing at the rim. This is a core skill improvement that moves Chet’s ceiling up in further, guys who can create their own shot are signficantly harder to game-plan for in the playoffs.
It is another welcome area of growth for a Thunder roster that has aspirations of finally reaching the promised land and winning the NBA Finals for the first time.