OKLAHOMA CITY — It was the exact type of play the NBA and its fans want to see more of … except for the ending.

In the first quarter of Sunday’s Golden State Warriors–Oklahoma City Thunder contest, the Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins slashed to the basket from one sideline, and the Thunder’s Chet Holmgren arrived from the weak side from the other sideline. The two met the summit near the basket, and Wiggins managed to finesse a double-pumping finish around the 7-foot-1 shot-blocker.

Unfortunately, it ended with Holmgren sideways, landing with a thud on his hip and breaking it (technically, a right iliac wing fracture). The Thunder’s star big man is out for an extended period, although he is expected to return this season. He will be re-evaluated in eight to 10 weeks, but “re-evaluated” doesn’t necessarily mean “return to play.” Based on everything we know about this organization, one expects the Thunder to take things slowly with the big man.

On one hand, it was a freak play, an incredibly rare basketball injury that happened as a result of an odd fall, with Holmgren landing in exactly the wrong spot.

On the other hand, it was perhaps the defining moment of the opening weeks of the season: Yet another injury to a star player, and this one a long-term absence that leaves the Thunder without a single healthy center.

Join the club, Chet. Not only have the opening weeks been marked by a rash of injuries, but the names impacted have been significant. Already, Kevin Durant, Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, Stephen Curry, Paolo Banchero. Scottie Barnes, Dejounte Murray, Paul George and Khris Middleton have been shelved with multiple-game injuries. Kristaps Porziņģis, Joel Embiid and Kawhi Leonard haven’t taken the court at all three weeks into the season.

This, of course, is a continuing escalation of a growing issue over the past several years. Despite ever-more intensive and expensive efforts to improve player health and durability, the trend line on player availability has headed in the opposite direction.

Talk to sports science experts, and many will blame the game: As the pace-and-space era increasingly demands more of the athletes on the floor — witness the play above, for instance — sprains and strains become more prevalent. Add in a faster ramp-up from zero to 60 — there are only a few preseason games, and nobody takes them seriously anymore — and you get a bumpy takeoff into the regular season.

The league itself seems mystified about what to do about it. They championed a new player participation policy a year ago to theoretically make sure key players didn’t sit out national TV games or otherwise “load manage” themselves out of too many games. That seemed to work early in the season. By the end, however, it may have been a pyrrhic victory that took even more key players out of commission for the playoffs.

On Oct. 29, the NBA fined the Philadelphia 76ers for misrepresenting statements about Embiid’s absence, but it’s not as if it’s in the Sixers’ interests to hide Embiid while their season goes down the toilet. More generally, in a league that rewards teams for being at their best in May, it’s hardly shocking clubs won’t emphasize  November.

Again, Holmgren’s injury is something of an outlier — a broken bone rather than a soft tissue situation to be ”managed,” and one suffered by a player who appeared in all 82 games a year ago.

GO DEEPER

Aldridge: Joel Embiid’s 3-game suspension was just, but the NBA still has a problem to solve

Nonetheless, it felt like a straw that broke the camel’s back. Oklahoma City, which has no other centers available and won’t for weeks, adds another to the list of injury pile-on situations around the league that have left the Atlanta Hawks bereft of wings, the Memphis Grizzlies scraping the barrel for point guards and the New Orleans Pelicans running out of basketball players of any stripe.

For coaches, then, the league has increasingly become a nightly improv show based on who is available. That’s always been something of the case in the regular season, but it’s escalated in recent seasons due to increasingly frequent absences, even from nominally healthy-ish players. In 2013-14, for instance, 74 players played at least 80 games; last season, only 29 did.

Fortunately for the Thunder, they have a lot of experience in this particular realm because of Mark Daigneault’s previous mad-science experiments with small ball. Get ready for a more extreme version. (And centers, pray this doesn’t become an extinction event.) On Monday, Oklahoma City opened the game with 6-5 Jalen Williams at center, stole the ball for a runout on the game’s first play when the Clippers tried to post up 7-foot Ivica Zubac and ended up forcing 24 turnovers en route to a wild 132-128 win.

It wasn’t perfect, as Zubac’s size began to wear down the smaller Thunder late, and it opens at least a few questions about how scalable this whole enterprise is over a period of multiple 48-minute games. But the Thunder don’t need to ride this thing until June. They just have to get through a stretch until centers Isaiah Hartenstein (hand) and Jaylin Williams (hamstring) are healthy and they can play something closer to a traditional lineup.

And oh, the irony that OKC would be playing the Clippers the past two games. They, of course, are dealing with their own long-term situation with Leonard’s ongoing absence while he rehabs his troublesome knee; his and Paul George’s “load management” absences in previous seasons were one of the catalysts for the player participation policy in the first place.

The Clippers are in a tough spot, not really in a position to contend but still owing picks and swaps to the Thunder and Sixers through 2029. They’re fighting the good fight at 6-5 as Tyronn Lue conducts his own improv performance with a scrappy but offensively limited roster sans Leonard.

Those picks, of course, are the result of the trade of George to the Clippers in 2019 that landed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in Oklahoma City in addition to all those draft picks (one of which already begat Jalen Williams). And all Gilgeous-Alexander has done since is blossom as an NBA MVP candidate, adding to his resume Monday with a career-high 45 points despite a maelstrom of handsy, trapping Clippers wings.

That takes us full circle to the top of the story: It’s a star’s league, and keeping stars like Gilgeous-Alexander (and Holmgren and Leonard) on the court is paramount for both teams and the league. Holmgren’s injury was a freak play, yes, but it underscored the worrisome early-season trend line that the league still hasn’t really figured out how to keep its best players on the court.

Prospect of the Week: V.J. Edgecombe, 6-5 freshman, SG, Baylor

(This section won’t necessarily profile the best prospect of the week. Just the one I’ve been watching.)

I went to Spokane this past week (no, really) to watch Baylor’s season-opening game at No. 6 Gonzaga — a rare early showdown rather than the typical college basketball opener where State U plays Barbizon and wins 118-43. While Gonzaga has a veteran team full of upperclassmen who are fringe draft prospects, the main scouting appeal for this game was V.J. Edgecombe.

Let’s start with the fun part and work backward. Edgecombe is an explosive leaper and showcased that skill with one of the most disrespectful dunks I’ve ever seen in person, a garbage time detonation on Gonzaga walk-on Joe Few:

Unfortunately, the rest of his night didn’t go nearly as well. Edgecombe shot just 2 of 11 from the floor in a 101-63 loss, struggling with shooting and decision-making. While he showcased his athleticism on the glass and with one wicked chase-down block, he also showed he had a long way to go as a shooter and creator to make an impact at the next level.

It was a similar story Saturday in another nationally televised showdown against Arkansas (Baylor certainly was bold with its scheduling this year). Edgecombe scored 11 in that one, a 72-67 Bears win, but still struggled from the floor (3-of-12 shooting).

In particular, his perimeter shot warrants close scrutiny. Edgecombe is only 1-of-10 from 3 on the season, and it’s easy to see why watching him warm up. While he has a nice arc on the ball, his shot spins a quarter turn sideways, likely as a result of too much guide hand on the ball. Misses to the sides can be a problem, and some of his tries in the first two games weren’t close.

Additionally, Edgecombe has the burst to get to the rim but is still figuring out how and when to use his advantages. Too many of his drives against Gonzaga and Arkansas ended up in tight spaces and left him having to make tough pull-ups rather than get all the way to the cup. Even inside the arc, he’s just 4-of-13.

On a positive note, he absolutely pops as an athlete. He had a sick chase-down block in the Arkansas game to match the one he had versus Gonzaga, and his 15 boards included several leaping high-points that few other 6-5 players could have pulled off.

He also had a ridiculous weakside defensive play against Arkansas that was called a foul but really showed off his explosiveness:

We’re still in the early days of the draft evaluation cycle, so the important part for Edgecombe will be how his game evolves during the season. We’ve seen plenty of one-and-dones start slowly then come on like gangbusters as they figure out the college game, and he could be another.

Clearly, he has the athleticism to end up in the top five on draft night. But this is a loaded draft class, so he’ll have a lot of competition for those high lottery spots. That’s where his in-season development will matter: Evaluators will want to see more half-court execution and decision-making to go with the humiliating poster slams.

GO DEEPER

2025 NBA mock draft: Cooper Flagg leads strong group. But is it a ‘superclass’?

Rookie of The Week: Jared McCain, SG, Philadelphia

(This section won’t necessarily profile the best rookie of the week. Just the one I’ve been watching.)

In a draft class where it’s been difficult to find enduring success stories, the Sixers may have themselves a player in Jared McCain, the 16th pick. And unlike some of the later draft picks who have earned minutes early, he’s not an upperclassman but a one-and-done out of Duke. Nonetheless, McCain scored 27 points in Philadelphia’s overtime win Sunday against Charlotte and did it with a variety of off-the-dribble shot creation that suggests it was a repeatable skill.

The 6-3 combo guard has been able to score at a high rate already (32.6 points per 100 possessions) despite not being particularly hot from 3 (just 34.5 percent thus far), and he’s showing more off-the-dribble shot-creation chops than we saw in his one year at Duke. With a believable shooting stroke, most would bet on that 3-point percentage rising too.

Watch here, for instance, as he patiently backs up once he gets Grant Williams on a switch and then shakes past him, looks off the corner help man and gets a key layup in overtime:

And he’s not just a one-way player either.

While there are some concerns about his lack of size at shooting guard, watch this closeout defense on LaMelo Ball on one of the game’s key possessions. He not only cuts off Ball’s driving lane, but he was on top of his stepback and forced him into a crucial shot clock violation:

Nit-pickers will note that McCain can have trouble finishing against length and will have to continue building on his craft in the midrange to compensate. It would also help if he can develop his handle and vision to the point that he can take more reps on the ball.

Still, one can see the outlines of a CJ McCollum-type trajectory for McCain based on his opening nine games. In a rough start to the season in Philly, he’s been one of the few bright spots. If the Sixers can ever get their three max contracts on the floor together, hitting on a rookie deal like this could end up a big factor come spring.

(Photo of Chet Holmgren: Tim Heitman / Getty Images)