The Oklahoma City Thunder are heading into the summer with a clear job for Chet Holmgren. After looking like a shell of himself in the Western Conference finals, Holmgren is being pointed to as a player the Thunder need to work with before next season.
That matters now because Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had to carry the offense when Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell were sidelined, and the Thunder cannot count on that kind of burden every time the games tighten. Holmgren is still one of their most important pieces, but the version that showed up in the playoffs did not give Gilgeous-Alexander enough help.
Holmgren was healthy, on the court and active during the series, which makes the performance harder to dismiss. He was not dealing with a body issue that kept him out. He was simply ineffective when Oklahoma City needed him most, and at times he looked as if he had been completely taken out of the offense.
The breakdown was not subtle. When Holmgren stared down Victor Wembanyama with the ball in his hands, he would lose it or fall to the ground, a sequence that made Wembanyama look as if he was in Holmgren’s head. That is why the struggle is being framed less as a physical problem and more as a mental one. The Thunder can work on conditioning and skills all summer, but the bigger task is getting Holmgren comfortable enough to play through pressure instead of shrinking from it.
Gilgeous-Alexander got small spurts of help from Jared McCain and Cason Wallace, among others, but the Western Conference finals still turned into a test of how much one star could carry. Holmgren’s silence in that setting stood out because his role is supposed to ease that load, not leave it heavier. In that sense, the summer work is not about adding a nice extra option. It is about making sure Holmgren is ready to be a reliable part of the offense when the next playoff run reaches its hardest stage.
