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Speaker 1: Before we begin, a reminder to please rate and review

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Speaker 1: our show. It helps new listeners discover us and grow

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Speaker 1: the program. On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, part

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Speaker 1: of the fun of the NBA Draft is wondering which

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Speaker 1: players will excel as pros and which ones will wash

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Speaker 1: out and perhaps no one in this year's draft and

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Speaker 1: bodies the Boom or Bus debate more than gonzagas Chet Holmgren,

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Speaker 1: a man with a unique skill set and a specific

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Speaker 1: body type that has everyone around the league talking. S

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Speaker 1: I Senior writer Greg Bishop joins us to discuss Homegren's

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Speaker 1: prospects in the NBA and the conversation surrounding him. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Why is check holme Gren

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Speaker 1: considered to be the number one prospect of the Guns?

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Speaker 1: Honestly myself in that new aero style of basketball, Gran

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Speaker 1: at seven one running the floor. There's guys I can

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Speaker 1: do everything, and I feel like it's not just on

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Speaker 1: one to do the floor. I feel like I can

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Speaker 1: do everything at seven ft, finish it through contact. He

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Speaker 1: gets the rebound trail three this time, go ahead and

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Speaker 1: dial it up, or we'll get to the point where

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Speaker 1: I can do everything on both sides, like defensively. He

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Speaker 1: has been the man. Look at that Comica America the game,

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Speaker 1: John Holdrew, Are you serious? Greg Bishop? Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: Sports Illustrative Weekly, Always my favorite show to go on.

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Speaker 1: You want to Santa Barbara to see him train. Tell

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Speaker 1: us about Chat Homegroun. I gotta paint the picture for you.

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Speaker 1: This is like a real small workout center. It's tucked

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Speaker 1: on like a side street. It's like the last place

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Speaker 1: you'd expect to find somebody training to potentially be the

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Speaker 1: top overall pick in the be a draft, and wild

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Speaker 1: Shed is working out and dropping f bomb after f

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Speaker 1: bomb like every misshot. There's this group of older women

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Speaker 1: coming in and they are getting ready for jazzer sized class.

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Speaker 1: They're in the middle of marching it out. They're doing

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Speaker 1: mountain climbers. I saw a couple of burpies, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's headbands and in yoga stretch pants, and here's this

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Speaker 1: like really tall, really skinny guy, like thirty feet away

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Speaker 1: from them, and he's just swearing and swearing and swearing,

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Speaker 1: and like this is like if he misses a shot

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Speaker 1: during a drill in practice, and I think they noticed

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Speaker 1: the fire. It's all the like natural ability and stuff

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Speaker 1: that makes scouts salivate. But also when you take a

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Speaker 1: guy who's not afraid to work, who was universally praised

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Speaker 1: at Gonzaga, who isn't afraid to offend the jazzercizers who

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Speaker 1: are thirty feet away from him, I mean, I just

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Speaker 1: think he has a real chance to be a very special,

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Speaker 1: unique play when you put all that together. The tension

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Speaker 1: and Chet story essentially stems from his weight and the

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Speaker 1: idea of if you think a hundred pounds at seven

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Speaker 1: feet or just over is gonna be problematic in the NBA.

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Speaker 1: And by problematic, I mean this guy might get broken

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Speaker 1: in half like a board in a karate class. And

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Speaker 1: yet I think that the more people I talked to

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Speaker 1: about Chet and his prospects and the NBA and how

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Speaker 1: it has evolved, you know, it doesn't seem like many

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Speaker 1: people see it as that large of a problem. You're

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Speaker 1: absolutely right. The conversation centering around him begins with what

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Speaker 1: he looks like, his his physical body, and I think

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Speaker 1: that in the NBA, in sports were at large, we're

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Speaker 1: constantly looking at guy's body types and trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out whether or not they can put on some weight,

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Speaker 1: or how will translate or even if you know, in

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Speaker 1: the case of the other end of the spectrum, guys

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Speaker 1: like Zion Williamson, is he too baked? Does he need

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Speaker 1: to slim down a little bit? That's all part and

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Speaker 1: parcel of sports. But with him, I think it's really

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Speaker 1: interesting because we've seen this in the past with kids

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Speaker 1: who are skinny, can they put on weight? Taco Fall

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Speaker 1: who he's trained with Newrland's no while Seawan Bradley back

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Speaker 1: in the day. But it almost feels like this is

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Speaker 1: even more unique which had homegrown because as you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: he's seven one and a hundred pounds and every time

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Speaker 1: I watch him Greg, I feel like I'm his mother.

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Speaker 1: I just want to feed him a sandwich. Absolutely, It's

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Speaker 1: kind of funny, right because I've done a lot of

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Speaker 1: these sort of draft profiles in various sports, and I

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Speaker 1: always always kind of laugh when I'm sitting in the

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Speaker 1: gym somewhere looking at the body of a truly, you know,

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Speaker 1: sculpted and hard working and elite athlete, And when I

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Speaker 1: left the gym after watching chet practice, I'm like, I

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Speaker 1: gotta lose a few pounds because I shouldn't weigh the

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Speaker 1: same as this guy. I'm five ten. How does he

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Speaker 1: feel about the conversation about his body, because this isn't

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Speaker 1: this is a never ending topic and he can't get

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Speaker 1: away from it, So like, how does he react to it?

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Speaker 1: You know, I think he's aware of how skinny he is,

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Speaker 1: and it was really evident when he took his shirt

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Speaker 1: off while working out. In fact, I sort of wondered

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Speaker 1: if he did it to show us, you know, yes,

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Speaker 1: I am this skinny. I mean you could see every

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Speaker 1: individual rib in the cage, you could see all the

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Speaker 1: bones around them. It basically looked like he was wearing

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Speaker 1: a skin suit that had been stretched as tight as

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Speaker 1: humanly possible. And yet when I talked to him, you know,

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Speaker 1: he was sort of of the mind that he can understand,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of the argument or debate around him.

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Speaker 1: He knows that he's unique. He can't really even explain

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Speaker 1: how he can move that way, although there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of things that factor into that, you know, at

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Speaker 1: that size, and he understands that people are going to

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Speaker 1: look at that combination. Really skinny guy, really tall guy,

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Speaker 1: moves like a ballerina and say that's unusual. So I

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Speaker 1: think he gets it, but I don't think he looks

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Speaker 1: at it as a negative. You know, we talked a

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Speaker 1: lot about the evolution of the n B A. He

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Speaker 1: sort of first noticed the taller players, you know, roaming

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Speaker 1: outside when he was a kid watching Tracy McGrady. He

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Speaker 1: obviously has been compared um in some ways to Kevin Durant,

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Speaker 1: and I think he's really curious as as well as

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Speaker 1: anyone to see how it unfolds. Kevin Durant k D.

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Speaker 1: Back when he went through the draft combine, he famously

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Speaker 1: could not bench a hundred eighty five pounds and he

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Speaker 1: was asked about and he said, yeah, I don't really

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Speaker 1: care about that. Give me a basketball. That's a high

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Speaker 1: bar to clear. Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant for a reason,

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Speaker 1: So that's a tough comparison. I am wondering what chat

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Speaker 1: Holmgren is doing to transform his body. I know that

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Speaker 1: we've had in sports illustrated pictures of him working out.

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Speaker 1: A few years back, I wrote a story about Mo

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Speaker 1: Bamba coming out of Texas. He was also skinny, and

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Speaker 1: as I spent a day with him, he ate an

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Speaker 1: absurd amount of food. Greg Like, unless he was sleeping

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Speaker 1: or playing, he was eating. And I'm not exaggerating. He

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Speaker 1: would go from eating a meal sitting down to eating

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Speaker 1: a meal in the car on the way to working out.

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Speaker 1: I'm imagining it's like something sort of similar with chat.

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Speaker 1: What's he doing to get bigger? Yeah, No, he's definitely

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Speaker 1: on the seafood diet. You know, seafood eat it. That's

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Speaker 1: my dad joke for the day. It's a good thing

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Speaker 1: I've father. I think I think that he's trying to

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Speaker 1: put on weight, and he has a very enviable metabolism.

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Speaker 1: The key, though, I think, you know, in an overall sense,

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Speaker 1: is his training from a holistic point of view. So

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Speaker 1: the day that I spent with him, I saw him lift,

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Speaker 1: I saw him eat, I saw him train on the

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Speaker 1: basketball court. I saw him do virtual reality training, where

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Speaker 1: you know, essentially they were taking moments from NBA playoff

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Speaker 1: games that had happened that week. He could see them

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Speaker 1: in the headset and had to react to them quickly,

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Speaker 1: you know, to sort of a situational awareness thing. And

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Speaker 1: I think a big focus frame is the movement training.

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Speaker 1: So in an ideal world, he would put on ten pounds,

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Speaker 1: twenty pounds, even thirty pounds, but I wouldn't expect it

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Speaker 1: to happen overnight. In fact, the people that are training

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Speaker 1: him think that if he just put on a bunch

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Speaker 1: of weight and he didn't do it while he was

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Speaker 1: learning how to move at heavier weight count, that it

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Speaker 1: would be counterproductive because it would take his strength away.

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Speaker 1: And so what they're working on now is quicker lateral movement,

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Speaker 1: you know, larger force impact, very specific kind of movements

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Speaker 1: that he'll do over and over same drills, you know,

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Speaker 1: so that he can move the same way if he's

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Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty pounds heavier. The idea is this is

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Speaker 1: still a very young kid. Movement is in some ways

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Speaker 1: his superpower. He works at P three, which is like

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Speaker 1: a movement specialist performance company in Santa Barbara. You know,

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Speaker 1: all of his measurements there, even from the initial test,

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Speaker 1: not only show a guy that's an elite mover, truly

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Speaker 1: elite mover for someone of his size, but they don't

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Speaker 1: indicate any problem areas in terms of his health or

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Speaker 1: you know, they sort of map out what potential injuries

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Speaker 1: could be. He looks remarkably clean there, so essentially what

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Speaker 1: they're trying to do his bolster that make him, you know,

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Speaker 1: the kind of mover that would separate him in the

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Speaker 1: n b A while adding as much weight as possible

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Speaker 1: before it would hit a stage where it's detrimental. And

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Speaker 1: so that's sort of the tricky calculus. Make him better

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Speaker 1: at what he does, but bigger, and yet at the

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Speaker 1: same time not worse than what he does. Because he's bigger,

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Speaker 1: he is surprisingly agile, right, I mean, he's he's long,

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Speaker 1: he runs really well. Uh you mentioned in the story

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Speaker 1: that he's got these go go gadget arms. I love

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Speaker 1: a good inspector gadget reference length is an obvious plus

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Speaker 1: for him. Uh, so he does all those things well.

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Speaker 1: What also surprises me about him, Greg is that, for

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Speaker 1: being so slight, he has a real fighting mentality, like

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Speaker 1: you'll see him in certain games. He shoots the three,

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Speaker 1: but he also protects the rim at the rim and

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Speaker 1: just rejected brown, now he brings it up again, go

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Speaker 1: ahead and pull another three. Here we go for three. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Normally for guys who protect the rim, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of contact, and you would expect somebody who's so slight

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Speaker 1: to maybe shy from that. But he really doesn't, you

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Speaker 1: know what. I saw him from fifteen feet away. It

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Speaker 1: was a different experience then watching all the Gonzaga games

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Speaker 1: I watched last season. In fact, when we were at

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Speaker 1: P three, we were watching video of him doing a

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Speaker 1: standing vertical jump right, like real simple movement. You're basically

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Speaker 1: standing there, you go down and you go up, And

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Speaker 1: it was just striking to me to watch a wingspan

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Speaker 1: that's that long fold, that gracefully, but it was like

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Speaker 1: watching Roger Federer go up first serve. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: goes down and bends and comes up and it's like

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Speaker 1: it's Swan like. That's the best way that I can

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Speaker 1: say that there is that grace and body control that

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Speaker 1: you just rarely see in centers. And you know, I

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Speaker 1: think Taco Fall is a good comparison. Those guys should

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Speaker 1: have their own Netflix show. They're incredibly hilarious. Taco calls

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Speaker 1: Chet tiny, and Chet calls Taco short stuff. But they

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Speaker 1: don't want him to be that kind of body type

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Speaker 1: for exactly why you just said. And I think that

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Speaker 1: that's the other part of it that's really relevant. Not

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Speaker 1: only do you have swan like movement and great body control,

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Speaker 1: but you also have this real file or that's pretty

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Speaker 1: obvious when you watch Cheolgren played basketball. In the piece,

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Speaker 1: you mentioned that the word unicorn is overused or absolutely

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Speaker 1: right about that, especially in the n b A. I'm

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Speaker 1: curious though, how he feels about the use of that word,

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Speaker 1: especially as it's applied to him. It was pretty funny

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Speaker 1: when I asked him about it. Have you ever felt

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Speaker 1: like a unicorn? I'll get the answer enough because myself,

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Speaker 1: as a unicorn, I don't know. That's not filing I

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Speaker 1: would call myself. I understand the parallels of what they're

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Speaker 1: trying to do. I don't have an issue with it,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know. It's always if I was smart

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Speaker 1: and I was a smart businessman, I, you know, trying

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Speaker 1: to trademark something around it. He is a unicorn in

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Speaker 1: every sense and that we've never seen anything exactly like him.

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Speaker 1: And I got a lot of response on Twitter afterward

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Speaker 1: in terms of like they're saying, we're saying that he's

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Speaker 1: gonna be Kevin Durant. That's not it. It's just a

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Speaker 1: different skill set that's totally unique. Now, he may not

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Speaker 1: become that level of player. He may not be like

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Speaker 1: one of the top three players in the NBA, But

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Speaker 1: we have never seen somebody at that size out shooting threes,

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Speaker 1: bringing the ball at the break, and and this is

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Speaker 1: a very important end, being able to settle at the

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Speaker 1: rim on defense and protect it. You know, you just

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Speaker 1: you haven't seen that player yet. And to me, it's

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Speaker 1: the next step in the evolution of the league. And

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Speaker 1: when I asked him about it, he was funny at first.

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Speaker 1: Should have put on a license plate, should trademark did,

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Speaker 1: should have made T shirts? But then he got around

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Speaker 1: to like really talking about the concept, and I thought

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Speaker 1: this was maybe the most interesting thing from our conversation

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Speaker 1: that day, because he basically admitted that he can't make

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Speaker 1: sense of it either, that he hasn't seen somebody who

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Speaker 1: can move at his size the way that he does.

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Speaker 1: So he understands the intrigue. He gets the nickname. He

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Speaker 1: took great pains to say he would never call himself

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Speaker 1: the unicorn, and that it's a little bit embarrassing to him,

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Speaker 1: but he gets why people call him that because he

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Speaker 1: knows that he's unusual, and he thinks his job now

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Speaker 1: is to fulfill the unusual part, that is his strength,

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Speaker 1: to make sure that they're right. So the unicorn had

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Speaker 1: to come from somewhere, rights, what's his family like? Are

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Speaker 1: they big people too? So it turns out the unicorns

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Speaker 1: running packs. And you know one thing that was very

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Speaker 1: evident to me from the minute I stepped in the

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Speaker 1: gym at Santa Barbara is that ched comes from a

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Speaker 1: very tall family. Both his parents happened to be visiting.

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Speaker 1: I was right after Mother's Day, and I think they've

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Speaker 1: been in town for that. He sprung for brunch. By

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Speaker 1: the way, I picked up the tab from that n

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Speaker 1: I l cash. But he looked to the right, and

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Speaker 1: you see the dad's like a towering tree with the

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Speaker 1: cam quarter. He played basketball in college. And then I

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Speaker 1: looked to my left and the mom's there too, and

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Speaker 1: she was also taller than I am. And so I

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Speaker 1: think that height runs in the family. And my guess is,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is like evolution, and it's most natural

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Speaker 1: right that you'd be able to move better in the

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Speaker 1: later generations with the same level of height to begin with. Alright,

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Speaker 1: last one for you, because I've watched him play a

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Speaker 1: bunch and I sort of oscillate back and forth. There

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Speaker 1: are times when I go, man, the skill set is incredible.

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Speaker 1: I love that he protects the rim and shoots the

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Speaker 1: three and he's agile, and I do like that mentality,

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Speaker 1: that fighting mentality. On the other hand, I go, I

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Speaker 1: wonder about him playing with grown men. So you you

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Speaker 1: answer this for me. You're placing a bat. Are you

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Speaker 1: batting on him or against him? What's what do you

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Speaker 1: think it ultimately happens with his career? Consider me a

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Speaker 1: drinker of the unicorn cool. I should he should trademark

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Speaker 1: that as well. I think I think fifteen years ago

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Speaker 1: he would have had real trouble playing in the NBA,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe even ten years ago. But I think

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Speaker 1: what you're seeing now, as you're seeing a lot of sports,

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Speaker 1: is this is a s fourth that has bent towards versatility.

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Speaker 1: You know what we're seeing guys now that are huge

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Speaker 1: and tall and agile. They can play anywhere on the floor,

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Speaker 1: that create matchups in terms of being versatile, because movement

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Speaker 1: has become this incredible weapon in all the pro sports.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it always was, but now it's being honed

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Speaker 1: and refined and made better. And I think when you

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Speaker 1: look at that movement as a superpower and versatility as

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Speaker 1: a necessity, you know, Chent and I talked a lot

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Speaker 1: about the disappearance of the specialists. You're gonna see fewer

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Speaker 1: and fewer sharpshooters, fewer and fewer just defenders, few and

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Speaker 1: fewer guys that just blocked shots. I see the idea

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Speaker 1: of specialists kind of fade in a way, like in

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Speaker 1: today's NBA, you've got to be able to do so

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Speaker 1: many different things. When you take all that into consideration,

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Speaker 1: it really bolsters when you look at his ceiling, like,

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Speaker 1: here's a guy that fits where the league is going,

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Speaker 1: who is versatile, who can shoot, who can block shots,

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Speaker 1: who has great body control, who has no signs yet

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Speaker 1: that he will be perpetually injured, and who works his

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Speaker 1: butt off to get better at all of those things.

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Speaker 1: And I think when you put that all together, like

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Speaker 1: the real only lingering doubt in my mind is like

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Speaker 1: will he be snapped in half? And I wouldn't say

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Speaker 1: that that's like an unnecessary are are are improbable thing

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Speaker 1: to raise? Like I just picture like Joel Embiid, like

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Speaker 1: you know, did I will? I will finish him, you know,

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Speaker 1: and like just breaking him over his knee, like I

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's outside the realm of possibility, even

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Speaker 1: though I'm kind of joking, I think that it's going

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Speaker 1: to be a real test to like where this evolution

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Speaker 1: is going, you know, because if Check can play in

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Speaker 1: the NBA and excel in the NBA at his size,

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Speaker 1: with his relative lack of strength, then maybe the the

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Speaker 1: what we thought of as a post player evaporates entirely.

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Speaker 1: And so you know, to me that the experiment is

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Speaker 1: still to be determined. But if I were betting, I

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Speaker 1: don't think there's any reason so far besides sort of

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Speaker 1: our fear of what we don't know, what what looks

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Speaker 1: unusual to us, and what may ultimately be unusually true

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Speaker 1: in a way that's bad for CHET. I don't see

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Speaker 1: any reason not to think that he's gonna change the

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Speaker 1: way we look at basketball. Whether he's an amazing top

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Speaker 1: three player in the NBA or a top forty one.

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Speaker 1: Either way, he's going to be different, and I think

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Speaker 1: that that part, you know, should shine through. It's gonna

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Speaker 1: be really interesting to see how his career shakes out,

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Speaker 1: because you know, the variance, in my mind is so wild,

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Speaker 1: but I can't wait to watch it. Meanwhile, you can

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Speaker 1: read his story about Chad Holmgren on SI dot com

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Speaker 1: Greg Bishop, your number one on our SI weekly big board.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for this, thank you for having me, thanks for listening,

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Speaker 1: and a reminder to please rate and review our show.

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Speaker 1: It helps people find us. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a

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Speaker 1: production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows. And

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Speaker 1: for more of Sports Illustrated It's best stories and podcasts,

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Speaker 1: visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly

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Speaker 1: was produced by Jessica Yarmoski, Jordan Rizzieri, and Isaac Lee,

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Speaker 1: who was also our ound engineer. Our senior producer is

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Speaker 1: Dan Bloom. Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me

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Speaker 1: John Gonzalez. Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. If

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Speaker 1: you've stuck around this long, we leave you with this.

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Speaker 1: I have one question for YouTube. Mark Bechdel is an

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Speaker 1: amazing senior editor at Sports Illustrated and him and I

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Speaker 1: are having a fierce, months long debate as to whether

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Speaker 1: a unicorn is a horse. John, I would like you

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Speaker 1: to weigh in on the debate. Is a unicorn of horse? No?

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Speaker 1: I think a unicorn is its own thing, right. I mean,

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Speaker 1: isn't that what it makes a unicorn? Right? If it

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Speaker 1: was part of some other lineage, it wouldn't be a unicorn.

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Speaker 1: It has to be its own thing. You're on team

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Speaker 1: Bechtel there, But myself and his daughter say that if

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Speaker 1: it looks like a horse and is mistaken for a horse,

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Speaker 1: that it must be. Then it just would be a

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Speaker 1: horse with a horn. Well, but then it will be

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Speaker 1: a unicorn, right because it would be unique for a

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Speaker 1: horse with the horn. See, yeah, we could do this.

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Speaker 1: Now you might have convinced me. Mhm