Chet Holmgren did not just lose Game 7. He got pulled from it.
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault yanked his All-Star big man from the floor with 8:00 left in the fourth quarter on Saturday night with the Spurs leading 97-91 and the season slipping away. Holmgren did not return for over three full minutes. By the time Daigneault put him back in at the 4:26 mark, the game had effectively gotten away. Holmgren got pulled again with 1:23 left, this time for good, as San Antonio closed out a 111-103 win and a trip to the NBA Finals.
The benching itself was newsworthy. The reason behind it was even uglier.
Holmgren finished Game 7 with four points and four rebounds on 1-of-2 shooting in 33 minutes. He went the entire second, third and fourth quarters without scoring a basket. He looked passive, unsure and visibly intimidated against Victor Wembanyama. A fourth-quarter clip making the rounds online shows Holmgren not even contesting a Wembanyama jumper from the elbow. He just watched it go in.
Social media did not show mercy. “Game 7 Chet Holmgren” became a meme within minutes. Underdog posted a clip captioned “checking in on chet holmgren” that racked up millions of views. Barstool, Shooter McGavin and a dozen NBA accounts piled on. The cruelty was over the top, but it was rooted in something real. Holmgren did not show up.
Here is the part that should worry Oklahoma City. Holmgren is not an average player. He was an All-Star, an All-NBA selection and an All-Defensive honoree this season. He just signed a five-year, $239.3 million max extension last summer that runs through 2031. The Thunder built their roster, their cap sheet and their championship window around him.
And in the biggest game of the season, the team’s third option behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams got outplayed by his own backup. Jaylin Williams scored 11 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in 26 minutes. Holmgren managed four points in 33. If Daigneault is willing to bench a max-contract player at his position for a longer stretch in a Game 7, that tells you everything about how the staff viewed the matchup at that moment.
Some of this is Wembanyama-specific. The Spurs star has Holmgren’s number and has had it since they came into the league together. Wemby was bigger, longer and more comfortable in the post all series. He talked trash. He punished mismatches. Holmgren had no good answer.
The rest of it is on Holmgren. He let the moment swallow him. The body language was bad from the opening tip. He passed up shots, deferred on switches, and stopped attacking the rim. You can teach skill. You cannot always teach the willingness to fail in public, and that is what Holmgren did not bring on Saturday.
The Thunder are not in trouble. They are still the defending champions. They still have SGA in his MVP prime. They have draft capital, financial flexibility and one of the best front offices in basketball. They will be back next year.
But they need their max-contract big man to be a max-contract big man in Game 7. Holmgren has an offseason to figure out how.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
