Chet Holmgren dazzles in summer league debut for the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Utah Jazz

The NBA world was tuned into Utah Jazz summer league to watch Chet Holgren make his debut for the Oklahoma City Thunder and they were not disappointed. Holmgren was phenomenal and showed why he probably should have been the #1 overall pick with a phenomenal debut.

Holmgren’s statline was bonkers. Holmgren was 7/9 from the field and 4/6 from three and he made shots from all over the floor with spot up threes, pullup threes and fadeaway from the midrange. He also had 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 6 blocks to round out the night. Light work for the guy that’s looking like the prize OKC has been searching for.

For Utah, the biggest storyline coming into this one, besides a look at Will Hardy in the building for the first time, was Jared Butler. It wasn’t great.

Butler looked like he was making a point to run the offense but it came across as tentative and clunky. The shot also wasn’t there tonight as he went 3/10 from the field. On the bright side, he did have 4 assists and 2 steals and appeared to battle on the defensive end. It’s the first game of summer league, and some players take time to acclimate to the chaos of summer league, but it would have been nice to see Butler command the game, it was anything but.

The lone bright spot for the Jazz in this one was Jordan Usher who showed some nice perimeter defense. For a team that showed almost no passion on the defensive end last season, it was nice to see some fire on that end for once.

All in all, it’s not looking like it will be all that exciting of a summer league for the Jazz, but that’s to be expected with how little they’ve been able to do in terms of drafting the last few years. We may see Walker Kessler soon, I personally hope we do, but that may be in Las Vegas. Or after the Jazz make another move this offseason.