Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama are about to keep doing what the NBA has been setting them up to do for years: measure one against the other. The Thunder and Spurs are preparing to meet in the 2026 Western Conference Finals, and the series arrives with Holmgren coming off a first career All-Star Game selection and Wembanyama already holding the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year award.
Holmgren, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder, finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting and did not receive a single first-place vote. He still should come away with an All-Defense nod, and he has a strong case for All-NBA recognition. That leaves him in a strange place for a player whose profile is rising fast: he is good enough to be in the awards conversation, but still just behind Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs center who was also announced as a finalist for MVP and is all but guaranteed first-team All-NBA and All-Defensive honors.
The two were drafted one year apart, and both are more than 7 feet tall. That makes the comparison almost unavoidable, because they are not just elite young big men. They are the kind of skilled, two-way players who change how opponents build a game plan. Holmgren has been chasing Wembanyama in the award chase, and the Conference Finals now offer a stage where that pursuit can either tighten or widen.
That matters because playoff performance does not just settle a series. It shapes reputations. For better or worse, what happens in May tends to carry into the next regular season, and the optics from this matchup could affect how Holmgren is viewed when award discussions begin again. If he plays well against Wembanyama, the gap between them looks less like a hierarchy and more like a conversation. If he does not, the story line hardens.
The same is true for Wembanyama, though from a different angle. He already owns the Defensive Player of the Year award and sits near the top of the MVP race. Holmgren’s task is not only to help Oklahoma City get past San Antonio, but to make sure this series does not become another reference point for why one of these towering talents is already seen as a step ahead of the other.
