Considering their respective special plays and impact, Chet shows his appreciation on Wemby’s ROTY case this year.

In his recent appearance on the Boardroom, Chet Holmgren revealed his candid thoughts about who should win this season’s Rookie of the Year award between him and Victor Wembanyama.

“I feel like that’s a loaded question. First of all, all credit to Wemby and what he’s doing. Having the argument of winning vs. not winning, sacrificing for the team vs. having more opportunity, and what some might think are higher level players on a team vs. not. We’re both having great years,” he argued.

“I think the voting is in the eye of the beholder. The input from our season is what they’re going to judge it on.”

Well deserved winners

This is a diplomatic, respectable, and reasonable response from Holmgren. Regardless of who ultimately captures the award between him and Wemby, the NBA and award voters can’t go wrong in deciding who should win it, as both of them have proved their worth with their respective teams.

Thus far, Victor is the clear-cut favorite to win the rookie award. Despite a lowly regular season campaign with the San Antonio Spurs in which they only won 22 games, the French sensation lived up to the hype as a generational talent with averages of 21.4 points, 10.6 boards, 3.9 assists, and the league-leading 3.6 blocks. At age 20, Wemby has already shattered multiple league and Spurs franchise records, which only highlights that the best is yet to come for him.

Still, it’ll be unfair not to acknowledge what Chet has demonstrated this year. For him to strongly bounce back from his past season’s Lisfranc injury, Holmgren deserves his flowers as he played in all 82 games while averaging 16.5 points, 7.9 boards, 2.4 assists, and 2.3 blocks to go with 53% shooting. He emerged as one of the driving forces in OKC’s year of revelation that saw them capturing the Western Conference’s top seed heading to the 2024 Playoffs.

“Whenever that does happen, win, lose, draw, the focus at the end of the day is our season hopefully continuing on and what I have to do to help our team continue where they’re trying to go.”

Chet prepares with OKC for the playoffs

Chet couldn’t care less about potentially winning or missing the 2023-24 Wilt Chamberlain Trophy, as he has an essential duty to fulfill for Oklahoma City at this portion of the season.

As this year’s postseason is finally upon us, Chet is committed to aiding the Thunder in going deep for the championship. And knowing that they are receiving plenty of criticism and underestimation from the outside noise about their competitive stand as a No. 1 seed, the former Gonzaga star is ready to prove doubters wrong.

With his length, efficiency, and elite defense, OKC will truly need Holmgren’s presence and frontcourt anchoring as they are slated to face competition at the highest level on their way to the top.