The NBA rarely produces playoff series like the 2026 Western Conference Finals. The bout between the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder was the first series to feature two teams that won 62 or more games since the 1998 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz.
We haven't seen a series hyped to quite the extent that this one was since at least the 2018 Western Conference Finals between the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors.
Now that this momentous series is in the books, let's name some winners and losers for perhaps the most anticipated playoff series of the decade.
Winner: Victor Wembanyama
This isn't supposed to happen. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the championship in his second season, but he had a full college career. Magic Johnson did it as a rookie… but on Abdul-Jabbar's team. It took LeBron James four years to make the Finals and four more to make it back after he got swept.
Wembanyama is in rarified air now. He's claimed the mantle of "best player in the NBA" at such a young age and with so much room left to grow that, if he remains healthy, it's a title he might hold for another decade or more.
His Spurs are favored in the NBA Finals, he plays for a young and asset-rich team, and he'll have a chance to hold his coronation at Madison Square Garden, the world's most famous arena.
Now seems like the perfect moment to truly begin his campaign to unseat James and Michael Jordan as the greatest players of all time. He has a long way to go, but he's hitting the checkpoints he needs to earlier than either of them did.
Loser: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Look, we can be reasonable here. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was at an enormous disadvantage in this series when Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell got hurt. He was the last high-level shot-creator standing for the Thunder, and Wembanyama taking away the rim as he did forced him into a very uncomfortable position.
The series boiled down to him making tough shots off the dribble. He didn't make enough of them for six games.
But here's the thing about being a two-time MVP: you're sometimes expected to do unreasonable things. Gilgeous-Alexander has spent the year getting compared to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Players of that caliber have won through adversity. Gilgeous-Alexander hasn't.
He won a championship last season that may well have boiled down to injuries suffered by the Nuggets and Pacers before and during their matchups. He has the best roster in the NBA surrounding him, and that probably contributes to why casual fans don't regard him as highly as his numbers suggest they should.
And the agonizing thing here is that he did those unreasonable things in Game 7. He was genuinely spectacular. It's hard to ask for much more than 35 points and nine assists on 12-of-21 shooting when you're getting doubled as frequently as he was.
This could have been the game that changed the way he was perceived forever, yet most of his teammates didn't join him. There's not much anyone can do when three of their fellow starters score 14 combined points.
It's not as though his career or prime are over. The Thunder will be back in the mix next year and beyond, and Wembanyama's ascent means that they'll probably be underdogs. But this was a chance for Gilgeous-Alexander to shed some labels, to win a championship that frankly would have been more meaningful than the one he already had and legitimately launch him into those exclusive clubs occupied by the other multiple-time MVP winners.
As good as he was in Game 7, he just wasn't at this level for most of the series, and it's hard not to be somewhat disappointed by that. He may one day push his way through those doors, but he missed a chance to barge into the Pantheon.