Chet Holmgren’s – On a late night returning from Massachusetts, Chet Holmgren jolted his Thunder teammates with a simple exclamation about Jamal Murray’s 53-point outburst—then settled back into the quieter role he’s learned in Oklahoma City. From his defense-first rise to a ca
OKLAHOMA CITY — The talk on the team plane centered on a player Oklahoma City hadn’t seen in weeks.
All-Star point guard Jamal Murray had gone haywire that late-March evening. dropping a career-best 53 points in Denver while OKC was playing in Boston. Late at night. with the defending champs heading home from Massachusetts and already in the stratosphere. word of Murray’s heroics spread through the cabin. Fifty-three points. Nine 3-point makes. Murray was on fire.
Basketball players are fans of the game they play, too. They were glowing over a performance most of them had never matched.
Then Chet Holmgren entered the conversation.
The Thunder center hadn’t been sleeping. He wasn’t stationed in a back seat away from the action. He wasn’t hanging with the coaching staff, who sit in a different section, sequestered from his teammates’ social activity. Yet Holmgren stood up—like he had just surfaced from somewhere else—and blurted out a major announcement he was certain no one on the plane had yet realized.
“Oh!” he yelled. “Jamal Murray had 53! Y’all see that?!”
Without hesitation, the Thunder players merged toward him, all cackling simultaneously. Holmgren realized what had happened. It was not his first time zoning out only to enter a conversation without realizing it had already begun. Within seconds, he was giggling just as hard as everyone else.
“It’s funny, because it’s Chet,” said Kenrich Williams, one of Holmgren’s closest friends on the Thunder. “That’s Chet. He’s in his own world, man.”
Holmgren’s world, as Williams describes it and as reality seems to confirm, is mostly jolly.
He’s also the anchor of the NBA’s most smothering defense and the deserving second-place finisher in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2026. He’s the highly intellectual player who can match other teams’ play calls to what they’re about to run. fast enough to feel like he’s reading the next line—while still pulling aloof gaffes on team planes.
On offense, he’s not built to lead the league in touches. Inside Oklahoma City’s playoff offense, he’s been a supplementary option behind reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. After All-NBA wing Jalen Williams missed the majority of the regular season and much of the playoffs with injuries. Holmgren’s value remained rooted in the way OKC plays—tight. suffocating defense. quick decisions. relentless detail.
That role matters even more right now.
After Tuesday night’s win, in which Holmgren posted 16 points and 11 rebounds, the defending champion Thunder moved within one victory of a second straight NBA Finals appearance. OKC took a 3-2 lead over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 7 of the 2026 Western Conference finals.
And even in the noise of a series that’s this close, Holmgren’s humor lands like an internal reset: play the game, notice everything, but don’t lose yourself.
That steadiness didn’t arrive naturally in Oklahoma City. Holmgren’s time there could have gone the other way—where talent turns into impatience, and a young star starts to resent the math of a loaded roster.
Before Holmgren could spring to success, he had to accept being a secondary performer, an uneasy task for any young player who had existed—since childhood, in the language of basketball—“the man.” In OKC, he had to learn a new definition of greatness early, and he could never hold the top spot.
With 2025 training camp set to begin, his mind wandered away from the NBA for a moment—still chasing the idea of what being part of a team really means.
Fresh off his first title, Holmgren showed up at a pickup game hosted by popular YouTube streamer Kai Cenat. The goal wasn’t to play; it was to help a friend.
Holmgren knew Cenat’s online following. He also knew Gilgeous-Alexander had career goals that went beyond racking up trophies: a mission of selling sneakers. Holmgren was determined to help.
With the cameras on him, Holmgren gifted Cenat a pair of Gilgeous-Alexander’s Converses. Then he FaceTimed his starting point guard into the conversation.
“It’s all part of Holmgren’s plan,” the story of the moment makes clear. And it points to something he believes, even if some people arrive at it the hard way.
Contrary to popular belief, Holmgren rejects the cliché that the greatest teams push egos aside—forgetting individual goals in the quest for a Larry O’Brien Trophy. To him, sacrifice means having the greatest of both worlds.
“The best team is the team that has an awareness of each person’s individual goals and helps them get there as a team. ” he said earlier this year in a conversation with The Athletic. “Shai is trying to sell shoes; I went on a stream with his shoes. Maybe somebody’s trying to find their rhythm. They’re not really shooting the ball too well. It’s like, let me pass up this (shot), get them a good one. Stuff like that.”.
He added a memory from the year Jalen Williams was trying to make the All-Star team. “Like last year, (Jalen Williams) was really pushing for All-Star, and all of us were like, go get that s—. Like, go vote for him.”
Holmgren’s mentality comes from experience, though not many professional players can relate to the exact shape of his situation.
ESPN ranked him as the country’s No. 1 recruit when he left high school for Gonzaga in 2021. He did not disappoint in college, eventually becoming the second selection in the 2022 NBA Draft. After a Lisfranc injury sidelined him for his first season. he returned and lived up to the expectations that followed him.
If the once-in-a-lifetime Victor Wembanyama did not exist, Holmgren would have won Rookie of the Year. The next spring, Holmgren won his first ring. The following season, he made his first All-Star team and was named an All-NBA third-team selection.
After a lifetime as “the man,” his career has now forced him to learn a balance most players never have to confront.
And because Oklahoma City’s roster is built in layers—talent stacked at multiple spots, the kind of system that keeps feeding new roles—Holmgren has had to live inside that balance.
The Thunder provided the exceptional setup for it.
Teams that own top-five picks are normally not ready to win, and responsibilities are handed to young players who represent the future. Some become overwhelmed. Others break out. Either way, they receive the chances.
Holmgren never had the luxury of a main-lane career path in OKC.
He injured his foot before his rookie season in 2022-23 and did not play. When he returned, the Thunder were ready to take off.
“We’ve had a six-year build,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said. “There was pre-Chet and post-Chet. … We were a rocket ship once he started playing.”
Oklahoma City hasn’t finished lower than first in the Western Conference in any season since Holmgren returned. The roster overflows with talent—enough, people now argue, to place OKC on the precipice of a dynasty.
So the rare version of Holmgren’s challenge is this: he has lived up to expectations on both sides of the ball, but he must operate as a superstar role player for the good of the squad.
Daigneault described it with a picture and a question. “You ever seen the angel and the devil on your shoulder? That visual?” he asked. “Neither is the angel or the devil, but I do think a lot of players, you’ve got your individual stuff on one shoulder and you got the team on the other.”
By age 24, Holmgren has figured out the balance.
He would not average 20 points a game. Even with hyperefficient scoring numbers that could, in another world, convince him to chuck up too many ill-advised looks. He would not handle the basketball aplenty. despite being far more skilled than his potentially oafy—but actually quite fluid—7-foot-1 frame suggests.
Instead, he would play within the Thunder’s team concepts.
“Ego has been the downfall of many people’s careers,” Holmgren said. “I feel like ego gets in the way of maximizing the moment and also understanding. Basically. what you’re asking me is. would I trade what we just accomplished last year and the opportunity that we have (this year) and the group that we have?. Would I sacrifice that to go be able to shoot 20 shots a game?”.
“I don’t think so.”
Before he ever stepped foot in the NBA, Holmgren was a defense-first prospect—a shot-swatter who could also drain 3-pointers on the other end, a rare combination. At Gonzaga, he’d put the ball on the ground and drive to the hoop.
But even then, as just a 19-year-old freshman, he wasn’t the team’s leading scorer. That honor belonged to junior forward Drew Timme.
Holmgren understands what it’s like to take a back seat.
“I feel like I’ve had a very fast maturing with my ego,” he said. “Usually, it takes people till they’re done playing, and they realize that the game keeps going, and nobody’s bigger than the game. People think the game’s gonna stop when they retire. It’s like … no.”
The Thunder identified the mentality. It was a reason they locked in on Holmgren at the 2022 draft.
Daigneault spoke of general manager Sam Presti like he was acting on a stage. “The team’s general manager, Sam Presti, is like ‘a method actor,’” Daigneault said. “Presti doesn’t just study on-court habits; he also imagines the player in Oklahoma, inside the Thunder’s system and culture.”
“It’s very artistic,” Daigneault said.
In that artistic attention, Oklahoma City keeps searching for the same kind of trait. Daigneault recalled the first time he heard about a young player the team drafted in the 2023 first round—Cason Wallace. Wallace is described as a frisky guard capable of handling the ball and scoring more than he’s shown. but like Holmgren. has taken a back seat over his first three NBA seasons.
Daigneault said he had never even seen Wallace play. He’d been too focused on next-day opponents, and would not have recognized the teenager’s face.
So Presti described Wallace without mentioning anything to do with basketball. The exchange reminded Daigneault of a conversation about energetic big man Jaylin Williams the year prior.
“That guy right there has a different level of intangibles,” Presti told Daigneault at Williams’ pre-draft workout.
Williams had the type of fit the Thunder hoped to build: a team with high-IQ, low-maintenance personalities, and capable of sacrificing individual success to scrap in an inglorious, defense-first culture.
When Wallace entered the Thunder’s facility—before Oklahoma City even selected him with the No. 10 pick—Presti made the same claim to Daigneault: “Elite intangibles.”
A year earlier, Holmgren was the one stamped with that vaunted label.
Daigneault said it directly. “I’ve coached (Williams) now for four years, and you know what he has? Elite intangibles,” Daigneault said. “Cason Wallace? Nailed it. Holmgren, he had that one pegged.”
The Thunder’s identity is built on how the defense works and how decisions are made—quick, screening, cutting. But it’s also built on a personality profile.
Team over ego. Team over All-NBA. Team over scoring titles. Team over MVPs. Team over All-Star appearances.
No matter what the devil on the shoulder argues, Holmgren’s response stays consistent.
“The ego in me is like, I can accomplish those things,” Holmgren said. “But at the end of the day. I can’t let my ego get in the way and try to rush it to the point where it’s detrimental to where we are now. … I feel like it’s very shortsighted to chase the wrong things. and then you end up miserable. because it’s like. ‘Well. f—. now everything else that was going great is all f—-d up because I chased this.’”.
“The other thing that’s f—-d up. too. is some teams that aren’t as good. some guys get to the point where they’re like. ‘We’re not winning. OK. I’m gonna just make sure I get my averages.’ So. it’s like. I get my averages. but it’s not helping us win. But I got my averages, so now the blame goes on everybody else. That’s one f—-d up message.”.
Holmgren said he wants to steer clear of that.
There’s pressure for players to want shots because they are sexy, or because they signal status, or because it’s how they’ve always played. There’s also the most obvious professional logic: scoring in bunches can inflate a paycheck.
But Holmgren has found a hack to the system.
“If the team is winning, everybody’s gonna make more money,” Holmgren said. “If it’s a contract year for you. and your team s–ts the f—–g bed. even if you’re putting up good stats. you will make less money than if the team f—–g cooks. At the end of the day, winning is respected in the NBA, and winning in the NBA is rewarded.”.
The Thunder were mired in a rebuild when they drafted Holmgren. During his first professional season, they climbed to 40 wins but lost in the Play-In Tournament. The following year, a healthy Holmgren helped the Thunder to 57 victories and the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, before they eventually fell to the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
The next season, 2024-25, they won their first title since moving to Oklahoma in 2008.
This past summer, Holmgren and Jalen Williams became eligible for extensions. Both received max contracts.
Because Holmgren is irreplaceable. As is Jalen Williams, the Thunder’s secondary creator. As is Jaylin Williams, the elite carrier of intangibles. As is Gilgeous-Alexander, who is, at worst, the NBA’s second-best player.
As are Kenrich Williams, a career role player who once declared he prefers to finish his career in Oklahoma City because of the culture the guys have cultivated.
As are the out-of-nowhere developmental pieces, such as Ajay Mitchell, Aaron Wiggins or Isaiah Joe.
As is the newest addition, Jared McCain.
As is the pack of defensive hounds OKC releases on anyone it plays—a gang that includes Wallace, Alex Caruso, Luguentz Dort and Isaiah Hartenstein.
“I’m not sitting here saying, oh, because I have this mindset, we’re winning,” Holmgren said. “It’s because all of us have this mindset.”
Back on that plane, after Jamal Murray’s 53-point night and Holmgren’s sudden burst of laughter, the Thunder looked like a team enjoying the game.
It’s the same energy you see in their basketball now: defense first, egos handled carefully, roles embraced without bitterness.
And with one win between OKC and another Finals berth, it feels less like a coincidence and more like the only kind of belief a franchise like this can build—one bright moment at a time, and a mindset that doesn’t let the moment pass you by.
Chet Holmgren Oklahoma City Thunder Jamal Murray Spurs Western Conference finals Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Jalen Williams Kenrich Williams Mark Daigneault Defensive Player of the Year voting 2026