Oklahoma City Thunder vs. San Antonio Spurs was a playoff series that altered the trajectory of the entire NBA. The defending champions, coming off a 64-win regular season and chasing a repeat, were sent home by a team that fielded the youngest starting lineup in Conference Finals history: 22 years and 346 days old. The…
Oklahoma City Thunder vs. San Antonio Spurs was a playoff series that altered the trajectory of the entire NBA. The defending champions, coming off a 64-win regular season and chasing a repeat, were sent home by a team that fielded the youngest starting lineup in Conference Finals history: 22 years and 346 days old.
The first two games in Oklahoma City were described – accurately – as basketball’s version of Nirvana. A level of physicality, athleticism, and technical perfection that had never been seen before, even in a league like the NBA.
These are two teams that will soon become the blueprint for building competitive, young, and financially sustainable rosters over the long term (the Spurs’ core trio, for example, is still playing on rookie contracts).
But it was the conclusion of the series – dominated and dictated by the mere presence of an alien – that told us something many still struggle to admit: Victor Wembanyama is already the best player in the world… at just 22 years old.
Victor is changing the game
If his defense hadn’t already convinced you (he became the first player ever to win Defensive Player of the Year unanimously), all you need to do is look at the Thunder’s reaction – or Reggie Miller’s on the broadcast – to the 32-foot three-pointer that sent Game 1 into overtime:
Or the shot he hit in Game 4 – a classic buzzer-beater, except it came from a center standing nearly 7-foot-7:
Those highlight-reel plays actually hide the extraordinary impact the French star had in what was, to this point, the most important series of his career. San Antonio reached Game 7 for one reason above all others: it had Victor Wembanyama. The Thunder had not been challenged this severely by a single player in over a year.
This season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – one of the greatest isolation scorers in basketball – struggled only against the Spurs. Guarded by a defensive phenom like Stephon Castle and met at the rim by Wembanyama, he had few answers other than finding open teammates around the perimeter.
It’s frightening to say, but there may not be an antidote. And for the first time in the past two seasons, a team that looked nearly flawless, like Oklahoma City, encountered a puzzle it simply could not solve – not even with the brilliance of Mark Daigneault.
San Antonio is the first team in the modern NBA capable of deploying a 1-4 zone alignment – with four perimeter defenders – because Wembanyama can cover 16 feet in a split second while also switching onto Shai in isolation or blocking anyone who ventures into the paint.
Notice again the 1-4 zone setup, with four perimeter defenders – Harper, Champagnie, Castle, and Fox – protecting the arc while Wemby waits in the paint, ready to erase any penetration.
It was a wall the Thunder never cracked, even across seven games.
For the first time in his career, Shai didn’t have the answers to the test – aside from a Game 7 performance filled with impossible shot-making. But he was abandoned by his supporting cast, and by Chet Holmgren, who appeared genuinely intimidated by Wembanyama.
Passing Magic and LeBron
Game Score is an advanced metric created in 2005 to measure the value of an individual performance, accounting for points, assists, missed shots, turnovers, and much more.
And it was Victor Wembanyama, with an absurd 41-point, 24-rebound performance in Game 1 against Oklahoma City, who posted the greatest performance ever recorded by a player under 22 years old in either the Conference Finals or NBA Finals.
In doing so, he surpassed the legendary mark previously held by Magic Johnson, who posted a 39.6 Game Score in the deciding game of the 1980 Finals while starting at center for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Now sitting third on that list is LeBron James’ iconic performance against the Detroit Pistons in 2007, when he scored Cleveland’s final 25 points in Game 5, including both overtimes.
An unprecedented impact
Perhaps it was already obvious, but the series against the Thunder confirmed it: Victor Wembanyama is the most impactful human being ever seen on a basketball court.
The numbers from the Western Conference Finals against Oklahoma City support that claim:
| Offensive Rating | Defensive Rating | Net Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spurs with Wembanyama on the floor | 115.4 | 99.6 | +15.8 |
| Spurs without Wembanyama on the floor | 100.1 | 114.6 | -14.5 |
Without Wembanyama, San Antonio goes from looking like a championship contender to a team that can’t score even if the basket were the size of a bathtub. Defensively, they revert to what a normal team looks like against the Thunder – allowing roughly 115 points per 100 possessions.
The Spurs are a staggering 30.3 points per 100 possessions worse when their best player is off the floor.
His mere presence forces opponents to rethink the way they attack and the way they process the game. And that will happen against New York as well, which must solve the Wemby equation before San Antonio wins four games.
Following in Tim Duncan’s footsteps
The NBA has seen players as tall as Wembanyama before—roughly a dozen of them, from Manute Bol to George Muresan (both 7-foot-7) – but in terms of skill, coordination, and athletic ability, nobody has ever come remotely close to Victor.
Even Shaquille O’Neal knows it:
Wembanyama is the first perfect big man ever created. He can do everything. He’s a joy to watch
Shaquille O’Neal after Game 5 against Portland
He looks like a player engineered in a laboratory. He has been changing the very concept of basketball since his rookie season, and now, in his third year, he has the chance to lead San Antonio to a championship that would have seemed like science fiction because of both its timing and circumstances.
Now, standing between him and a title are the New York Knicks – just as they did in 1999. Twenty-seven years ago, Tim Duncan won Finals MVP and launched the Spurs dynasty under Gregg Popovich.
Now it is Wembanyama’s turn. He has the opportunity to become just the fourth player in NBA history to win Finals MVP at age 22. Before him, only Magic Johnson, Kawhi Leonard, and Tim Duncan accomplished the feat.
A date with history awaits. Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals between the Knicks and Spurs will see on one side the surprise story of New York. On the other, the phenomenon that is Victor Wembanyama. And the stage could not be any bigger.
