How does OKC Thunder's Chet Holmgren feel after first game back from Lisfranc injury?

SALT LAKE CITY — Chet Holmgren lumbered into the press room with bags of ice taped to his knees. A table at the front of the room, with microphones atop it, had to be pulled from the wall to accommodate Holmgren’s 7-foot-1 frame.

As he eased into a chair, Holmgren asked a few of us reporters how we were doing.

Well. And him?

“Happy,” Holmgren said.

And equally important, healthy.

Sure, Holmgren might have had a few aches and pains after the Thunder’s 95-85 win against the Jazz on Monday in Salt Lake City Summer League, but being on the court for 29 minutes, playing in a competitive game for the first time in a year, left Holmgren giddy.

“I can’t imagine what he was feeling,” teammate Tre Mann said.

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Last August, Holmgren suffered a Lisfranc injury in his right foot during a pro-am game in Seattle. He had one surgery to repair the injury, and then another to remove the screws from his foot. That injury and those surgeries sidelined him for all of last season.

But now, as Holmgren embarks on his rookie year (take 2), his foot injury, named after a French surgeon, is behind him.

“The foot feels great,” Holmgren said. “It’s like the injury never happened, other than everything I had to go through, obviously.

“But at this point, if you erased my memory, I wouldn’t know that anything happened to my foot.”

Only his scars would serve as a reminder.

Holmgren looked a step slow, a little sloppy and was short on his shot in the first quarter Monday night, but he was excellent over the next three quarters. He scored 15 points and swatted four shots.

“I thought he did a great job of competing on both ends of the floor,” Thunder Summer League coach David Akinyooye said. “Just to see him back out there, I know he was excited, and the guys were excited to be with him as well, too.”

More: NBA Summer League 2023: OKC Thunder roster, schedule and everything else to know

The same skills were there — elite rim protection and offensive ingenuity — even as Holmgren worked himself back into game shape.

“Conditioning wise, there’s millions of hurdles you have to go through in the process of returning to play,” Holmgren said. “Not being able to play a game for a year, it’s really hard to test and see where you are. And then coming up to the elevation, that just adds another factor to it.

“It’s definitely something I have to continue to work on, and I’ll be ready by the time training camp starts. I feel like I’ll have myself prepared to be in in-season shape.”

Holmgren said he was cleared to play five-on-five “right around the end of the season last year,” but playing in pick-up games is different from playing in summer league games, which is different from playing in NBA games.

“You really can’t simulate game situations,” Holmgren said. “You get out there with the crowd, and how everything works with the flow of the refs, and the calls and the timeouts and the quarters … it’s very different.

“You have to be out there to experience that.”

And in an encouraging step for Holmgren and the Thunder, he was back out there Monday night.

More: Where does the OKC Thunder's cap space stand after trading for Davis Bertans?

Thunder vs. Grizzlies

TIPOFF: 6 p.m. Wednesday at Delta Center in Salt Lake City (NBA TV)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder's Chet Holmgren feels healthy in return from foot injury