Chet Holmgren spent Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals being asked the same question he has been answering since the night he and Victor Wembanyama were both top-two picks in the 2022 NBA Draft. The 7'1 Thunder big, two years older than Wembanyama, was supposed to be the obvious counter to the Spurs centre. Instead, he was a passenger as Wembanyama posted 41 points and 24 rebounds in a 122-115 double-overtime San Antonio win.
First Take's Stephen A. Smith was not interested in the polite framing. On Tuesday's show, Smith turned to the camera and addressed Holmgren directly — by name — in a tone he usually reserves for headline names rather than 23-year-old role players.
"Chet Holmgren, what's up?" Smith said. "We heard all of this noise all of these years supposedly — I don't know, never asked him — but y'all don't necessarily get along. Y'all don't really like each other. You and Wembanyama, obviously. I understand. He's 7'5. Bro, you ain't 6'5, you 7'1. You understand? You got skills. You can play."
The pivot from acknowledgement to demand came quickly.
"I'm looking at this and I'm like, how Wemby doing what he's doing? But to compare that and juxtapose that to Chet Holmgren doing nothing offensively, nothing offensively. It's like, damn, you got to accept that challenge."
Holmgren's box score was the rare quiet line in a 245-point shootout. He attempted single-digit shots, did not impose himself on the offensive glass, and failed to provide the Thunder with the secondary scoring outlet they had used all season to make Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's defensive workload bearable. With Wembanyama hovering at the rim and rotating freely off Alex Caruso — whom he was nominally guarding — Oklahoma City's normally automatic offence stalled. SGA shot 7-of-23 and committed four turnovers.
The matchup history Smith referenced is real. Wembanyama and Holmgren have crossed paths repeatedly through U17 international basketball and now twice in the NBA postseason. The Spurs centre has openly acknowledged in past interviews that the rivalry is one he tracks. Smith framed Game 1 as the moment Holmgren had to prove he had not been left behind.
"And then when you watch Wemby close the deal in the two overtimes, five or six blocks — you got to be there," Smith continued, before pivoting to the Thunder's wider problem. "Oklahoma City did not play a bad game. They were a little bit rusty. That's why they started off at a deficit."
The rust comment was a deliberate kindness. The Thunder had just swept the Lakers and were playing their first game in nine days. Jalen Williams was returning from a 25-day hamstring layoff. Mark Daigneault's rotation looked sharp from a pure execution standpoint. Smith's argument was that none of it mattered because Holmgren did not match Wembanyama's energy.
ESPN's Cam'ron, Smith's frequent foil on First Take, agreed but kept his criticism softer. "Mitch did," he said of Spurs coach Mitch Johnson. "He was getting up in people last night. He was holding people responsible. Six man of the year Johnson, come sit on the bench with me. You miss out on assignments. Dylan Harper, let me talk to you. You're not closing out on three-point shots."
The message from both sides of the desk: Daigneault is being out-coached and Holmgren is being out-played. Whether Holmgren takes the public dressing down as motivation or pressure will be answered in Game 2, which Smith spent the next segment of the show declaring a must-win for the top-seeded Thunder.
For Holmgren, the route back is simple in theory and brutal in practice — match Wembanyama's energy or watch the series go 2-0 against a Spurs team Smith has now said publicly cannot be caught from down 0-2. Whether the rivalry the broadcasters keep referencing translates into him answering the bell remains to be seen. Right now, the loudest voice in the conversation belongs to a man at a desk in Bristol, asking the question on his behalf.
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/stephen-a-chet-holmgren-71-nothing-offensively-first-take-game-1-may-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
