Will Chet Holmgren Ever Beat Victor Wembanyama? OKC Star Looked Petrified in Game 7 Interview
Chet Holmgren did not just lose to Victor Wembanyama on the basketball court Saturday night. He lost the press conference too.
The Oklahoma City Thunder big man was visibly shaken after the San Antonio Spurs eliminated his team 111-103 in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals at Paycom Center. A reporter asked Holmgren whether Wembanyama had gotten into his head during the series, and the answer told you everything you needed to know.
“At the end of the day, it’s always about us trying to win the basketball game,” Holmgren said softly. “Us as a collective, the Thunder team trying to win the basketball game. That’s what it’s always going to be.”
That is not the voice of a former All-NBA selection who just got outplayed once. That is the voice of a player who knows the matchup problem in front of him might not have a solution.
Holmgren scored two points in the opening minute of Game 7. He did not score another basket the rest of the night. Four total points on 1-of-2 shooting in 33 minutes, with Mark Daigneault eventually pulling him for stretches of the fourth quarter when the game was hanging in the balance. Backup Jaylin Williams went for 11 points and 10 rebounds in 26 minutes off the bench. The numbers do not lie, and neither does the body language.
Meanwhile, Wembanyama dropped 22 points and 7 rebounds, won Western Conference Finals MVP, and is now four wins away from a championship at age 22.
The Thunder signed Holmgren to a five-year, $239.3 million max extension last summer. That money starts kicking in next season. After watching this series, you have to wonder if OKC made a mistake committing to a player who shrank from the moment when his rival expanded into it.
This is not a one-game referendum. Holmgren was an All-Star, an All-NBA pick and an All-Defensive honoree during the regular season. He helped the Thunder win a championship in 2024-25. He is 24 years old. He is going to be a very good player for a very long time.
But “very good” is not the same as “good enough to beat Wembanyama in a seven-game series.” And the Western Conference is going to run through San Antonio for the rest of the decade unless someone in OKC figures out how to flip the matchup. Right now, that someone is supposed to be Holmgren.
The defending champions just spent six weeks watching their seven-footer get bullied by a different seven-footer. Holmgren gave the media a few sentences. He did not give the Thunder fan base any reason to believe Round 2 will go differently next spring.
Sam Presti has a long offseason ahead. The roster around Holmgren is championship caliber. The franchise center now has to prove he is too. Otherwise, this rivalry is going to keep ending the same way, with Wembanyama in the Finals and Holmgren staring at the floor.
OKC fans should not panic. They should, however, pay attention. Because the look on Chet Holmgren’s face after Game 7 was the look of a player who knows the work has just begun.
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.
