Chet Holmgren’s foot injury is awful, but don’t fault NBA players for playing in the Pro-Am circuit

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Just when it looked like we’d get a quiet day in the Association following Tuesday’s news that Kevin Durant would remain in Brooklyn, awful injury news about Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren came from nowhere.

Exams show Holmgren potentially has ligament damage in his foot, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Wednesday. He’s undergoing further evaluations to determine a timeline.

This is potentially devastating news for Holmgren, who was the second overall pick in this year’s draft. As well as for the Thunder, who are finally putting some good pieces together after a long rebuild, and for all of us fans who were looking forward to seeing a unique talent in games that actually matter.

On that note, the injury is believed to have occurred in a game that didn’t matter — not as far as the NBA is concerned. It supposedly took place at Jamal Crawford’s CrawsOver Pro-Am in Seattle. A video showing Holmgren limping after defending LeBron James on a fast break had been making the rounds since Saturday, and that certainly looks like the moment it happened.

Now, I know that might lead you to conclude that NBA players should stop playing in these games during the offseason. But before you go down that road, allow me to make one amendment: Players shouldn’t play in games with unsafe court conditions. Pro-Am or not.

The CrawsOver had to be stopped reportedly because the court was too slippery. That’s absolutely not the surface Holmgren or anyone should have been playing on. But news flash for anyone who thinks NBA players shouldn’t be playing basketball at all in the summer: Basketball players play basketball. As long as the court is deemed safe, I have absolutely no problem with NBA players keeping their games sharp by doing just that.

We’ve seen dozens of NBA players in Pro-Am games this summer (and many more in past years), and Holmgren’s injury is the first potentially serious one to come up. It absolutely sucks, but let’s not overreact by calling for players to stop playing in games that matter to a lot of people.

Instead, put that energy towards hoping the injury is as minimal as possible and Holmgren is able to get back to doing the thing he loves sooner than later.

The Tip-Off

Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.

Back to that news about Kevin Durant staying in Brooklyn. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Nets struggled to find a suitable trade for one of the very best players in the league. But now that it’s settled, we can start picking up the pieces.

As my buddy Sykes wrote, there are several winners (including the Nets) and losers (KD) from how this thing played out. One of the losers I couldn’t agree more with is the entire Eastern Conference.

“The Bucks, Celtics, Heat, 76ers and everyone else vying for a championship in the East shouldn’t be happy about this news.

Durant nearly leaving the conference would’ve kept potentially the best player in the league out of their hair until the NBA Finals. But now? He could be a second-round matchup.

The Nets are beatable, obviously. But nobody wants to have to play this sort of talent — especially not early in the postseason. We’ll see how things shake out.”