OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Thunder announced Monday that forward/center Chet Holmgren will miss at least eight weeks with a pelvic fracture.
Holmgren sustained a right iliac wing fracture during the first quarter of Sunday night's game against the Golden State Warriors. The team says it expects him to return this season, and an update will be provided in eight to 10 weeks.
It’s a big loss for a team that started the season with seven straight wins and currently is tied for the Western Conference lead with an 8-2 record. Holmgren was runner-up for Rookie of the Year last season and has been one of the league’s most efficient players this season. He is averaging 18.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per game.
Holmgren contested a layup by Andrew Wiggins, collided with him and hit the floor hard. He immediately reached for his right hip and stayed down for a while before he was helped off the court. He did not put pressure on his right leg, but he gave a thumbs up as he hobbled off.
The Thunder led 16-12 when Holmgren was taken out and eventually fell behind by 30 late in the third quarter. Oklahoma City made it a game before losing 127-116.
Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said it was difficult to refocus after the injury.
“It’s hard," he said. "Hopefully, he’s OK. It’s part of the game, but it sucks.”
Oklahoma City entered Sunday night leading the league in defensive rating but didn't look like it in the second and third quarters without the team's anchor in the paint. The 7-foot-1 Holmgren is one of the league's top shot blockers, and he is agile enough to defend guards when he has to switch.
“It changed a lot for us defensively, for sure," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You guys can probably tell, he does so much on that end of the floor. He cleans up so many things, deters so many things around the rim when he’s not blocking them (shots).”
Still, the Thunder started the fourth quarter strong, and Oklahoma City trimmed its deficit to six in the closing minutes.
Gilgeous-Alexander said there was a lesson to be learned from the second half.
“Especially against good teams, you can’t go down that big," he said. “It’s almost impossible to come back. You’ve got to be better on both ends of the ball for longer periods of time.”
The Thunder, one of the deepest teams in the league, are suddenly thin in their frontcourt. Holmgren had moved from forward to center because newly-acquired big man Isaiah Hartenstein was out with a fractured left hand. The Thunder were also missing forward/center Jaylin Williams (right hamstring) and guard/forward Kenrich Williams (right knee).
Oklahoma City hosts the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren (7) gives a thumbs-up as he is helped off the court by Thunder forward Jaylin Williams, left, and center Isaiah Hartenstein, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, left, and Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins (22) collide as Wiggins shoots during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Oklahoma City. Holmgren was injured on the play and helped off the court. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, center, gives a thumbs-up as he is helped off the court by Thunder forward Jaylin Williams, left, and center Isaiah Hartenstein, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a year before an American military operation deposed Nicolás Maduro, a senior aide to President Donald Trump argued that the Venezuelan leader had been dispatching gang members into the United States.
"If you’re a dictator of a poor country with a high crime rate, wouldn’t you send your criminals to our open border?” Stephen Miller told reporters in the closing stretch of Trump's 2024 comeback campaign.
Miller now serves as the White House chief of staff for policy, where he plays a prominent role in promoting Trump's policy agenda. His bombastic style and zero-sum worldview have made him a lightning rod within the administration. Critics argue that Miller’s rhetoric about foreign nations and immigrants echoes racist and imperialist ideas that have undergirded military actions by the U.S. and other nations for centuries.
A joint statement from the governments of Spain and five Latin American countries following the Venezuela operation called for countries in the region to engage in “mutual respect, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and nonintervention,” while Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the administration's Venezuela policy “old-fashioned imperialism.”
“Advocating for policies that put American citizens first isn’t racist. Anyone who says so is either intentionally lying or just plain stupid,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
Here's a look at how Miller laid the rhetorical groundwork for this month's attack on Venezuela and what his comments say about the administration's broader worldview.
Shortly after the U.S. operation that captured Maduro, Miller wrote on social media: “Not long after World War II the West dissolved its empires and colonies and began sending colossal sums of taxpayer-funded aid to these former territories (despite have already made them far wealthier and more successful). The West opened its borders, a kind of reverse colonization, providing welfare and thus remittances, while extending to these newcomers and their families not only the full franchise but preferential legal and financial treatment over the native citizenry. The neoliberal experiment, at its core, has been a long self-punishment of the places and peoples that built the modern world."
Two weeks before Maduro's arrest, Miller in December echoed arguments by Trump that the Venezuelan oil industry was stolen from American oil companies:
“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs,” Miller wrote on social media.
Miller in January claimed to reporters that U.S. military power had ensured compliance from the Caracas government.
“We have an oil embargo in Venezuela for them to do any kind of commerce. They need our permission. We have our massive fleet or armada still present there. This is an active and ongoing U.S. government military operation, and so, of course, we set the terms and conditions," Miller said.
He added: “Our conversations are that we are very much getting full, complete and total cooperation from the government of Venezuela, and as a result of that cooperation, the people of Venezuela are going to become richer than they ever have before. And of course, the United States is going to benefit from this massively in terms of economic, security and military cooperation, counter-narcotics, counterterrorism and every other dimension of our security."
During a wide-ranging January interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Miller repeatedly argued for the primacy of American power and criticized the international order the U.S. once led.
“You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world," said Miller.
Miller also dismissed concerns that Trump's vows to take Greenland from Denmark, a fellow member of the NATO military alliance, may trigger a military conflict with Europe.
“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland," said Miller.
In the same interview, Miller said it would be “absurd and preposterous” and “not even a serious question” to propose the administration support Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado's bid to lead the country because the military would not back her.
Tapper then asked whether the South American country should hold elections.
Miller replied: “The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries, to be able to be positioned as an asset against the United States, rather than on behalf of the United States.”
The anchor pressed Miller on whether sovereign countries had the right to conduct their own affairs.
Miller explained the administration’s stance: “The Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Doctrine is all about securing the national interest of America. For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle East to try to build them parliaments, to try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology." He called for an end to "This whole period that happened after World War II, where the West began apologizing and groveling and engaging in these massive reparations schemes.”
He also defended the administration's operation and echoed his past claims that Maduro had sent criminals into the U.S.: “We’re not going to let tinpot communist dictators send rapists into our country, send drugs into our country, send weapons into our country."
Miller has returned to promoting the administration's stance on domestic issues like immigration and partisan politics.
On Tuesday, following nationwide protests after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minnesota, Miller wrote on social media: “Americans voting overwhelmingly for mass deportation. Congress passed laws requiring it and then passed new legislation to fully fund it. The response of the Democrat Party and its activists has been to support and orchestrate violent resistance against federal law enforcement.”
He later added in a separate post, “In case it isn’t clear by now, if Democrats won they would have made every city into Mogadishu or Kabul or Port-au-Prince."
FILE - United States Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller reacts on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein), File)
