The Thunder's 7-foot, 195-pound rookie looks like he might 'break.' A leading sports scientist explains why he won't.

• Chet Holmgren was drafted with the second overall pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
• At 7 feet, 195 lb, Holmgren's unique, lanky frame has some concerned that he'll get injured in the NBA.
• Marcus Elliott, founder of P3 Sports Science, says Holmgren's advanced biomechanics testing leaves no cause for concern. 

Rarely are the risks of an NBA draft prospect so pronounced, so plain to see as they are with Chet Holmgren.

Whereas the concerns with some future NBA players revolve around their shooting touch, defensive ability, or work ethic, with Holmgren it was: Can his body hold up?

The 20-year-old from Gonzaga, who was taken with the second overall pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder this June, has one of the most unique frames in NBA history: 7 feet tall, just 195 lb, with a 7-foot-6 wingspan. He is rail-thin and likely even taller than his NBA profile lists him — NBA big men are known to sometimes downplay their height.

Indeed, just about every piece of pre-draft analysis mentioned the same thing about Holmgren: He can extend the floor with his three-point shot, take slower opponents off the dribble, and protect the rim at an elite rate. But will his body hold up against the rigors of the NBA? Could he take the banging that comes with defending opposing 7-footers who outweigh him by nearly 100 pounds night after night?

"Everyone's concerned about him holding up, everyone's concerned about him breaking, because he's so thin," said Marcus Elliott, the founder of P3, an advanced sports science lab that works with numerous professional athletes.

Holmgren is the latest player to be given the label "unicorn" — a player with a combination of skills that the basketball world has never seen. He's just the second player to stand over 7 feet tall and weigh 195 lb or less, according to ESPN's Kirk Goldsberry (Aleksej Pokusevski, Holmgren's teammate on the Thunder, is the other). If Holmgren reaches his potential, his outside shooting, agility, and rim protection could make him a force.

But for Holmgren to realize his immense potential, he'll, of course, need to stay on the floor.

Elliott worked with Holmgren for several months this year in the lead up to the draft, studying his movements, analyzing his body. He's not concerned.

"When we see something that we're not used to seeing, we just say, 'Well, that can't be, that's not supposed to be,'" Elliott told Insider, adding: "They say it about Chet being as long and skinny as he is. And just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it can't work well when it actually appears."

Holmgren's impressive testing

The role of the NBA big man has changed significantly over the years. The demands on them have grown.

The modern NBA big man must not only score efficiently near the basket and protect the paint on the other end; he must be able to catch the ball on the move and make plays in space. He must be able to step outside of the paint on defense and corral opposing ball-handlers who are much quicker.

Physically, it's a whole new game. As Elliott put it, your average  7-footer won't cut it anymore — a wider net has been cast to find the players that can meet this demand.

Holmgren is off to a good start. He had an impressive Las Vegas Summer League showing after the draft, including one highlight-filled, 23-point, six-block performance. Summer League grandeur doesn't always ensure NBA success, but it was a sign that Holmgren could succeed against NBA-level competition.

Holmgren's P3 testing suggested to Elliott that the lanky center could hold up.

At P3, players go through rigorous testing that simulate basic game movements — lateral movements, jumps, second jumps, etc. According to its website, P3 uses 3D motion capture technology and force plates to analyze how athletes move amd then apply corrective instructions to the movement and assess the injury risk for these athletes.

Elliott says P3, which he founded in 2006, has worked with about two-thirds of current NBA players and more than 900 players total. The company has now built up a database that lets them compare how these players move.

According to Elliott, Holmgren grades highly.

"His knee and ankle acceleration are exceptional," Elliott said, laughing at this reporter's confused silence on the other end.

"That might not mean something to most people, but knees primarily drive vertical performance. And in our overall database, his knee extension velocity is in the 77th percentile.

"His ankle extension acceleration is in the 97th percentile," Elliott said, explaining that ankle extension acceleration is how quickly ankles flex, key to movements like sliding.

Elliott said those numbers include all of the players P3 has analyzed, including "hyper-athletic guards" who typically jump and slide with greater ease than big men.

"So, for a big guy to put up numbers that are in the 80th and 97th percentile, roughly, is pretty unusual."

According to Elliott, Holmgreen is remarkably put together. Referencing the song, "Dem Bones," Elliott said: "Everything is just connected so well. His foot knows what his shin is doing, and the shin knows what the knee is doing and what the hip is doing, and so on ... From a biomechanic standpoint, everything is just where it's supposed to be."

Elliott added: "The way his body is connected is super unusual for a guy his size."

It's that connectivity that makes Elliott optimistic about Holmgren's future.

"Chet, in his extreme thinness, how light he is for someone of his length, that by itself is not a significant risk. When he gets pushed on by a 300-pound player, he's gonna tend to move more than most of those 300 pound players.

"But that's not how athletes get injured in the NBA. They get injured because they come down awkwardly, because they cut and they tear a meniscus and so on. And Chet puts himself in positions that are built to last."

Holmgren's future bodes well

Elliott was impressed with Holmgren when they first began working together before the NBA draft combine.

Elliott said that many players, coming off their college seasons, are beat up and need to rehab or work slowly. Not Holmgren.

"With Chet, we went right at training," Elliott said. "Like, as soon as he showed up, we were doing aggressive training with him. Nothing hurt him ... He was with us within a week of their season finishing and just ready to go, just ready to get to work."

Elliott pointed to Holmgren dead-lifting over 300 lb off the ground while working at P3, a number Elliott called impressive for an athlete at that stage.

That Holmgren has never had a serious injury also gives Elliott hope.

P3 takes the data it collects on players and puts them onto a diagram not unlike the Vitruvian man. Elliott said most players taller than 6-foot-8 have some spots highlighted in red, which represents high injury risk. Holmgren's map is all green, with some yellow.

"It just shows that he's super symmetric," Elliott said. "He doesn't have any rotation across long bones that causes too much valgus or any of these things that increased risk of knee injury. His system just moves the way a body's supposed to."

According to Elliott, when P3's data says a player is at risk of a severe injury, two-thirds of the time, that player does have a significant injury within the next two years. If P3 says that player doesn't have a high risk of injury, 75% of the time, that player doesn't have a significant injury within the next two years.

"I feel confident that the near-term on this kid is all clear sailing," Elliott said. "And if he continues to care for his body that he's gonna have a long and really successful career."