NBA Champions Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren on Drinking for the First Time, Watching Love Island, and Why Every Season Feels ‘Long as Shit’

Williams: [pointing] Him.

That was Chet?

Holmgren: Growing up, I was like, make sure one of your teammates gets some shine, camera time, whatever. Somehow it ended up turning into the whole team.

Williams: I low key remember it, because Nick [sideline reporter Nick Gallo] was explaining it. It was him and Gid [former Thunder player Josh Giddey]. Then the next game, it was him and somebody else. Then me and J-Will [teammate Jaylin Williams] peeped it, and we started messing around in the interview. It just became, like, “Everybody, let’s mess around during the interview.” It just became [part of our] DNA, because we were winning, so it was fun. Then it was like, “How much can we get away with? Nick never breaks character, let’s try and get Nick.”

Then the barking happened, and we were like, “All right. If you haven’t barked in an interview, now you got to do it.” In a way, it was incentivizing winning a little bit, because you’re not going to do a team interview when you lose. If we win, we can get Coach to bark, or we can get Nick to bark, or whoever. That’s how it came about. Our team is so crazy, everybody started jumping into it. The games mesh together, bro. Like 82 games, sometimes it’s hard to make it fun, so that was something to look forward to every game.

Do you have an opinion on the length of the season? It feels like the playoffs took seven months.

Holmgren: I don’t have an opinion, I have a statement: It is long as shit. Unless you go through it, you really don’t understand it.

I played 10 games, I fractured my hip, and I still came back with 30 games left in the season. Then we played two and a half months of playoff basketball. It feels like before I broke my hip and after I broke my hip are two completely different seasons. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say shorten the season, because that’s less money for us.

Williams: It is less money.

Holmgren: I don’t think it’s too much, because at the end of the day, in order to win that championship, you have to go through it all. When you do win it, it’s so worth it.

Williams: We have different views on it now than before. When you don’t win, it’s like, yeah, the season is too long. It’s very weird. If you’re losing the whole season, it feels very long. Then, there’s parts of the season where we were doing so well, you don’t even realize how long it’s going on.