Chet Holmgren: ‘It was a challenging year, but I feel like I made the most out of it’
In preparation for the 2023 FIBA World Cup, the Select Team was invited to scrimmage with the National Team to familiarize them with FIBA rules.
After beating the National Team in two separate scrimmages on Day 2 and logging abundance of minutes, Chet Holmgren sat down with HoopsHype to talk about his experience with the Select Team, the long year of rehab he went through, the upcoming Thunder season, and more.
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Chet Holmgren: It’s been great. It’s great to be able to play against a competition like this and learn from a lot of different coaches who have been in the game for a long time at a lot of different levels and have a lot of different experiences, so it’s good to be able to pick their brains.
CH: Learned a lot. All coaches have their own specific styles and right now we’re trying to learn a little bit of people’s style with what they’re gonna see when they go over there [to the World Cup]. It’s a little bit different than NBA basketball, but a lot of the principles are still the same.
CH: I mean anything like that is gonna be challenging for anybody, but I feel like I’ve stayed the course really well, and I didn’t let my focus, attention to detail or confidence waver. It was a challenging year, but I feel like I made the most out of it.
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CH: No doubt, I just focused on other things like this [USA training camp]. This is what I gotta do to build my confidence back. I’m not going to waste my time.
CH: My individual game. I feel like I improved a lot. I feel like just making this [Select Team] just because I spent so much time in an individual setting. Just not being able to play in games and stuff.
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CH: Great player, very deserving of the attention he’s getting. It’ll be fun to be able to match up against him.
CH: My focus is on helping this team win games. Things like Rookie of the Year, and everything else are not important, so I’m just focused on helping the team. Everything else follows the team’s success.