Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder were one win away from having a shot at defending their championship in the NBA Finals, but the San Antonio Spurs had other plans. They came to their home, the Paycom Center, and ended their season with an emphatic 111-103 win in Game 7 to send the Thunder home.
Subsequently, Gilgeous-Alexander sat down with the media today for his end-of-season interview and spoke about his expectations for Chet Holmgren going into the summer.
“We need Chet, we need Chet Holmgren. Before Chet was here, we weren’t what we are today; we didn’t have the success we have today. When he’s the best version of himself, we’re the best version of ourselves, and it’s no secret,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
“And yeah, we need Chet; he’s also another guy [alongside Jalen Williams] to get All-NBA offensively, defensively, and All-Star in one season. Guys like that, you need on your team. We need them to be the best version of themselves for us to be the best version of ourselves.”
A reporter further asked him if he plans to have a conversation with Chet Holmgren to detail his expectations for the young star.
“Nah, I haven’t talked to Chet about that. I won’t because I just don’t feel like I need to. I didn’t perform my best this series, so Chet won’t come to me with a development plan, you know what I mean?” Gilgeous-Alexander candidly admitted.
“Chet knows how much I care about this game and want to be the best version of myself every night out there on the floor. And I know how much Chet loves this game and wants to be the best version of himself out there every night on the floor.
“And sometimes it just doesn’t go that way. Like, you’re just not the best version of yourself for whatever reason it is. And all you can do is like use that experience to your better, which is what I’ve done in my career, which is what Chet’s done in his career, which I have no doubt he’ll continue to do,” he added.
“And then I always say it’s like the version of Chet that we have today is the worst version of Chet we’ll ever have. And I’ve said that literally every time I talk about Chet.”
“So, like he’s going to get better at basketball, and he’s just going to be a better player because of the makeup he is, the talent he has. And I don’t need to umbrella chat. He’ll figure it out.”
Gilgeous-Alexander also claimed that this season was a failure in his opinion, but he has full faith in the organization, including their front office, to make the necessary moves and adjustments to come back stronger.
But Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Williams will likely remain at the core of the franchise. Even Chet Holmgren spoke to the media tonight about his own performance in this series and what his key takeaways were for the summer.
“I think part of it is being… I’m also gonna have to like really dive into the tape to really understand the specifics of it, but just kind of from like a raw feeling. I feel like part of it was being kind of closed out, heavy too.”
“And then also kind of just being a little bit out of rhythm at times, I feel like there were definitely opportunities to get more attempts up that, I didn’t in the moment. And, you know, that’s an area to improve,” Holmgren said.
A reporter then asked him if his offseason plans would focus on improving on his strengths or adding new things to his offensive ‘bag’.
“I mean, I think it’s both. It’s always both. No matter how good you are at something, you can always improve. Nobody’s perfect at any skill. And then, I feel like every basketball player wants to improve, add, and get better at different things,” he said.
Chet Holmgren is a player who averaged 17.1 points, 8.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.9 blocks while going 55.7% from the field and 36.2% from beyond the arc in the 2025-26 regular season.
Before coming into the series against the Spurs, he was averaging 18.6 points, 9.1 rebounds,1.3 assists, and 1.8 blocks while going 60.0% from the field and 38.7% from behind the three-point line.
However, his performance against Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals looked nowhere close to what his postseason was looking like before this series.
In Game 7, with the season on the line, he put up four points, four rebounds, two steals, and two blocks in 33 minutes of action while going 1-2 from the field (50.0 FG%) and 2-4 from the free-throw line.
He averaged 10.7 points, 7.1 rebounds, 1.0 assists, and 1.1 blocks while making 51.0% of his shots from the floor with a 27.3% efficiency from beyond the three-point arc in this series.
A key part of this fall in his performance was Victor Wembanyama, the Defensive Player of the Year, who dominated the floor on both ends and won the Western Conference Finals MVP award.
For a player coming off an elite season where he helped his team get the No.1 seed in the West, Holmgren severely underperformed, especially for a player who made All-NBA teams for his excellence on both ends of the floor.
All eyes are now on the upcoming NBA Finals. A chance for Holmgren to take some time off and plan his offseason out to bounce back harder. It will be interesting to see how he bounces back from this learning experience next season. Gilgeous-Alexander has full faith that Holmgren will do what is needed to take his game to the next level in 2026-27.
