Tramel's ScissorTales: Thunder's progress take a hit with Chet Holmgren foot injury

Let’s be honest about Chet Holmgren. The Thunder didn’t really know what it had in the Gonzaga stringbean.

Holmgren is incredibly skilled for a 7-footer, with uncommon defensive instincts. He also weighs less, soaking wet, than Ty Jerome.

So despite knowing more about Holmgren than any other group of humans on Planet Earth, the Thunder brain trust still doesn’t know what it has.

But now, the Thunder knows what it doesn’t have: Holmgren.

The Thunder announced Thursday that Holmgren, picked No. 2 overall in the June NBA Draft, has a ruptured tendon in his right foot, known as a Lisfranc injury, and will miss the 2022-23 season.

Bummer. Total bummer.

Bummer for the fans, who had a Grade A reason to keep going downtown on cold winter nights. Bummer for the league, which loves to market its heralded rookies. Bummer for television, which was so mesmerized by Holmgren that it made Thunder-Magic part of a Nov. 1 TNT doubleheader.

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Bummer, mostly, for Holmgren, who hopefully will have a long and productive NBA career but now knows it’s one year shorter than it could have been.

And bummer for the Thunder, based on this reason: This will slow the Thunder education on exactly what kind of ballplayer the 7-foot-1 Holmgren will be.

A traditional center with perimeter skills? A perimeter player on offense and a rim protector on defense? A versatile player who can play all over the court?

Think of the questions that won’t be answered by next summer. How does Holmgren hold up at 195 pounds in the paint? How strong with the ball is Holmgren, with all the pickpockets trying to steal his wallet? How does Holmgren hold up over the rigors of an NBA schedule?

Where is Holmgren comfortable? Where is he not? How well does he play with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? With Josh Giddey? Does Holmgren match up well with Darius Bazley or not? Does Holmgren match up well with Jeremiah Robinson-Earl or not? Does Holmgren match up well with Kenrich Williams or, wait, Williams matches well with anyone.

But you see my point. This Thunder season suddenly turned down the lane of unanswered questions.

“It would be better if he was playing, no question,” Sam Presti said. “I think the thing that we will lose is just the interactivity with his teammates in terms of on the court.

“Like what works, what's working, things to try. Sure, we are going to lose that.”

Some lament the loss of Thunder excitement. As if this injury will send OKC back into lottery land.

Sorry to squash that theory, but the Thunder was lottery-bound anyway. Vegas put the over/under number of OKC wins this season at somewhere in the 20s. With Holmgren.

The Thunder was not going to make a run at the Western Conference play-in games. There are 10 or 11 solid-or-better teams in the West. The Thunder was nowhere close to that status.

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Heck, it’s possible the Thunder could win more games now. It’s possible that going all in on Holmgren’s (and Giddey’s, and Santa Clara Williams’, and Robinson-Earl's, and Tre Mann’s, and Ousmane Dieng’s) development was going to keep the OKC victory total in the 20s anyway.

Until further notice, the Thunder is in the augmenting business, not the victory business.

Thus, the bummer. Holmgren’s progression will be delayed.

Oh, Holmgren will advance in some ways, even without playing. The weight room and Thunder nutritionists will make him stronger. Holmgren will learn the nuances and cadences of NBA life, which all rookies have to maneuver. Presti even said Holmgren can start launching shots relatively quickly.

“He's going to be able to do a lot of things with the ball,” Presti said. “It’s just the on-court piece of the symmetry with the group.”

The fear, of course, is that Holmgren’s injury becomes chronic instead of acute. If it does, it does. Nothing anybody can do about it.

I don’t live in fear and suggest you don’t, either. Presti says the Thunder doesn’t.

Presti mentioned a variety of NBA stars who missed their first season due to injury. Joel Embiid, Blake Griffin, Ben Simmons.

“A lot of these players are getting better so quickly because from the ages that these guys entered the league, they have such a wide range of growth,” Presti said (Holmgren is 20). “They are getting better for eight, nine, 10 years, especially with the way that guys are playing longer in today's NBA.

“So I don't think that missing the first year is really going to change the outcome.”

True. It doesn’t have to change the outcome for Holmgren. Or the Thunder. But it absolutely could slow the hoped-for outcome for the Thunder.

“We are building something that can be sustainable, and we have a long runway with our team because of its age,” Presti said. “Chet will be a huge factor in that. But it's bigger than one season or one game for us, and we just have to be patient as we go through this.”

Presti calls the Thunder rebuild a “second climb” up the mountain. This rebuild already was going to be a steeper climb than the meteoric rise of the Thunder circa 2010.

Now it’s going to be even slower going for the Thunder, which will have to wait at least a year to start learning what it really has in Chet Holmgren.

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Mike Gundy: Brett Yormark knows the Pac-12

Conference realignment is just getting started. That’s the message new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark gave Mike Gundy during a 70-minute conversation Tuesday as Yormark visited the OSU campus.

Gundy said he didn’t get any state secrets, and what Gundy surmises is what we all surmise – that the Big 12 is looking west, toward the Pac-12, and not much east.

“He says that it’s just getting started,” Gundy said. “It’s kind of funny because it’s gotten quiet now for a month, right? I mean, we haven’t really heard a lot, so that means it’s going on.

“I’m very comfortable with him. We made a great decision in hiring him.”

Gundy called Yormark a “straight shooter. One thing I like about him is he’ll tell you the truth. I’m in heaven. I have a commissioner that’s a straight shooter, I got a president (Kayse Shrum) that’s a straight shooter and an AD (athletic director Chad Weiberg) that’s a straight shooter.

“I’ve never been so happy in my life. I’m a straight shooter. Sometimes it works against me, but I am.”

Yormark was announced in early July as the successor to Bob Bowlsby. Yormark took over officially on August 1.

“He’s very well educated on all the schools in this league,” Gundy said of Yormark. “Obviously, he didn’t get to where he was by not being a planner and being smart, high-intelligent. He is that.

“He wants information. He meets the criteria of what people do that are eager to learn and trying to get out there and be innovative.”

Gundy was impressed with how much Yormark knew about the Pac-12 schools, which the Big 12 obviously is recruiting.

“He’s a wheeler dealer,” Gundy said. “I wouldn’t even begin to know where to start with him. He knows so much about the schools in this league, and he knows so much about the Pac-12 schools just because of what’s happened, and I was shocked.”

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Len Dawson’s Hall of Fame careers

One of the most underrated Super Bowl champions of all time was the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs.

The year before, Joe Namath and the Jetropolitans had stunned the football world with a mighty upset of the Colts. That gave the American Football League some status with the American public.

But the next winter, when the AFL Chiefs beat the Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl 4, the AFL removed all doubt about their worth in the fledgling merger with the National Football League.

The quarterback of those ‘69 Chiefs? Len Dawson, who died this week at age 87 as a Kansas City institution.

Dawson had a career like few others. While quarterbacking the Chiefs, in 1966, he became sports director of Kansas City’s KMBC-TV. After retirement, he became a nightly sports anchor and stayed on that job until 2009. For a few years, he still filled in anchoring and reporting on the Chiefs.

From 1977-2001, Dawson hosted HBO’s Inside the NFL and was an NBC analyst from 1977-82. From 1985-2018, Dawson was a Chiefs radio analyst. In 2012, Dawson was honored with the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, presented by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That same institution had inducted Dawson as a player in 1987.

A Hall of Fame quarterback. A Hall of Fame sportscaster.

Dawson grew up in Ohio, was a star at Purdue, then was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers fifth overall in 1957. He didn’t play much his two years in Pittsburgh, then was traded to the Cleveland Browns. Dawson spent three Cleveland seasons as a backup, then was released, having completed 21 passes over five NFL seasons.

Dawson latched on with Stram and the Dallas Texans. It was a glorious match. Dawson was most valuable player of the AFL in 1962, the Texans won the league championship and Dawson’s career took off, even as the franchise moved to Kansas City in 1963.

And the highlight of his playing career was that 1969 season. The ‘66 Chiefs played in the first Super Bowl, but Green Bay rolled to a 35-10 rout.

Three years later, Kansas City was better. And primed.

I still can recall much of that Chief starting lineup, without internet help. Buck Buchanan, Curly Culp, Jerry Mays on the defensive line. Willie Lanier, Jim Lynch and Bobby Bell at linebacker. Emmitt Thomas, Jim Kearney, Jim Marsalis, Johnny Robinson in the secondary.

Otis Taylor at flanker. Fred Arbanas at tight end. E.J. Holub, Ed Budde, Jim Tyrer on the offensive line. Robert Holmes and Mike Garrett in the backfield. (I had to look up receiver Frank Pitts, offensive linemen Dave Hill and Mo Moorman, and defensive lineman Aaron Brown).

The great Hank Stram coached those Chiefs.

Kansas City went 11-3, then in the playoffs held off the Jets 13-6 (Namath completed 14 of 40 passes) and the Raiders 17-7, both on the road.

Finally, KC dominated the Super Bowl. Dawson completed 12 of 17 passes for 142 yards.

The Chiefs led 16-0 at halftime, and Taylor took a short pass from Dawson and turned it into a 46-yard touchdown, which put away the game in the third quarter.

The Vikings rushed for just 67 yards, in those days of run-heavy NFL.

The Kansas City defense was mighty. Buchanan, Bell, Lanier, Thomas and Robinson made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So did kicker Jan Stenerud. Plus a quarterback named Dawson.

We don’t think too often of those Chiefs, but what a team, what a season, what a game.

And what a career by Lenny Dawson.

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The List: Rookie seasons missed

Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren will miss the 2022-23 NBA season due to a ruptured tendon in his foot.

But Holmgren is not the first high draft pick to miss his entire first season out of college basketball. Here are eight high picks whose NBA debuts were delayed:

1. David Robinson, Navy: The overall No. 1 pick in 1987 had to fulfill two years of military commitment before debuting with the Spurs, but the wait was worth it. Robinson was an all-time NBA great.

2. Blake Griffin, OU: The Sooner sensation missed his first NBA season, 2009-10, due to a stress fracture in his knee. No matter. Griffin became a perennial all-star with the Clippers, who had drafted him No. 1 overall.

3. Joel Embiid, Kansas: The 76ers selected Embiid third overall in the 2014 draft, even knowing a foot injury could sideline Embiid for the entire season. Turns out, Embiid’s foot problems kept him out two straight seasons. Still, Embiid now is an MVP-caliber center.

4. Jerry Lucas, Ohio State: Lucas was picked by the Cincinnati Royals but didn’t like their contract offer. He instead signed with the Cleveland Pipers of the upstart American Basketball League. But the NBA countered by offering to let the Pipers jump leagues. The Royals protested, the NBA put stipulations on the Pipers and eventually the franchise and the league folded during what would have been the 1962-63 season. By then, it was too late for Lucas to play with Cincinnati, though he eventually became an all-star.

5. Greg Oden, Ohio State: One of the saddest tales of recent NBA history, Oden was the overall No. 1 pick in 2007, by Portland, which selected Oden over Kevin Durant. But Oden had microfracture surgery on his knee and missed the entire season. He ended up playing just 105 NBA games.

6. Ben Simmons, Louisiana State: The overall No. 1 pick in 2016 suffered a broken foot in training camp with the 76ers and ended up missing the entire season. He returned to make all-NBA, before his career derailed with other issues. Now he’s trying to return, with Brooklyn.

7. Nerlens Noel, Kentucky: Noel was the No. 6 overall pick in 2013, by New Orleans, which immediately traded him to the 76ers in the Jrue Holiday deal. Noel sat out that first season having already had knee surgery for a torn anterior cruciate ligament. He’s been a journeyman in the NBA.

8. Nick Collison, Kansas: The 12th overall pick in 2003 by the Seattle SuperSonics, Collison missed the 2003-04 season with shoulder injuries. He returned to become a foundational franchise player with the Sonics/Thunder.

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Mailbag: Conference realignment

It’s all quiet on the western front as far as conference realignment goes. But at least one reader, Richard from Arizona, is upset with his desert schools, particularly the University of Arizona.

Richard: “The UA Doormats. Dumped by SC and UCLA, they look like a deer in the headlights. Now, Oregon is two-timing them, and Cal, Stanford and WU (Washington) want to leave. They are wiping their feet all over the UA and ASU. No self-esteem. Why haven't (school presidents) begged the Big 12 to let them in? These two presidents are risk adverse, having never had to survive in the business world. They will end up in nowhere land with nobodies. Doormats that lack the self-esteem to leave.”

Tramel: For all we know, the Big 12 is playing hard to get. Consider this. What if the Big 12 is ready to expand but is really waiting on Washington and Oregon? If the Ducks and Huskies don’t bite, the Big 12 moves on to Utah, Colorado, Arizona State and Arizona.

I don’t know. I would guess the six Pac-12 schools with no shot at the Big Ten would like to stick together. But they have to be ready to move if necessary.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Chet Holmgren's foot injury will slow OKC Thunder's NBA rebuild