5 NBA stars who will want to erase the 2025-26 season from memory

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5 NBA stars who will want to erase the 2025-26 season from memory

Julian Eschenbach · Basketball Network

Wed, Jun 17, 2026 ·

7 min read

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This year, the New York Knicks have reached the promised land. For most fans, it's the first real breakthrough they've seen — a once-in-a-lifetime run. The franchise made the Finals back in 1999, but going all the way now hits different.

The headline is clear.

A historic stretch of playoff wins, a few saw coming.

Jalen Brunson , Finals MVP and already in the conversation among the greatest Knicks ever, led the team and ended a 53-year wait for the Big Apple. But that's only part of the picture. While one city celebrates, it looks very different elsewhere around the league.

Not everyone met that standard. Some players fell well short of expectations. The gap between hope and reality, in those cases, looks more like a step back. For them, the 2025–26 season actually left more to undo than to build on. A season to forget.

Chet Holmgren

Holmgren was an All-Star this year. But as they say, the real measure comes in the playoffs. That's where reputations are built. In the biggest moments. Under pressure.

For the Oklahoma City Thunder , that reality hit hardest against the San Antonio Spurs . It was a Western Conference Finals series defined by physicality and postseason intensity. Holmgren, however, struggled to impose himself. The drop-off from his regular-season production and efficiency was hard to miss.

Ultimately, Holmgren showed clear hesitation attacking the rim. Victor Wembanyama 's elite interior defense for the San Antonio Spurs had a lot to do with that.

The numbers alone told part of the story.

In Game 1 against the Spurs, Holmgren finished with eight points. In Game 7, he had just four. He also attempted only two field goals. The lack of volume was just as concerning as the production.

Holmgren had that unfortunate early-career preseason injury. It wiped out his rookie year after being drafted second in 2022. Since then, the forward hadn't faced disappointment like this. Still, his adjustment to playoff basketball at this level fell short.

Across the Spurs series and the 2025 Finals against the Indiana Pacers , another seven-game battle, the numbers showed as much.

Holmgren averaged 11.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.35 blocks, shooting 44.8 percent from the field and 31.6 percent from three. Solid splits on paper, but 9.2 field goal attempts per game isn't enough for a player positioned as a cornerstone of OKC's future. And in those moments, it wasn't good enough.

De'Aaron Fox

The same standard applies here as it does with Holmgren. When it mattered most, Fox didn't quite deliver. That stings a little more, given the whole reason he was brought in. He was supposed to stabilize a young, talented Spurs roster. Be the steadying presence when games get tight. Instead he was inconsistent throughout the postseason. That especially showed up most in the series against the Knicks.

Across that Finals matchup, Fox averaged 12.8 points and six assists per contest. Meanwhile, the efficiency and late-game control left a lot to be desired. In key stretches, Fox's scoring dipped under playoff pressure. His impact as a floor general wasn't consistent; an ankle sprain may have done that. It actually felt like shifting from possession to possession.

For a player with his experience and usage, the bar is higher, and that's where the gap became clear. It showed against the Knicks and again against a disciplined Oklahoma City defense as well. Like Holmgren, it was a missed opportunity to turn regular-season standing into postseason authority.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

In a league shaped by its superstars, anything that pulls them out of safe waters quickly becomes a storyline of its own. Few names carry that kind of weight more than Antetokounmpo , whose year, really dating back to the preseason, can only be described as uneven.

When Giannis is on the floor and healthy, he's dominant. MVP-level stuff, same as always. But the broader situation around him has rarely felt stable. Injuries kept cutting into his availability, and he ended up playing roughly half the schedule. That's a significant drop even from last season, when he already missed time.

Milwaukee 's direction has been under scrutiny for a while now. The questions about whether this core can still contend haven't gone away. Trade rumors and long-term uncertainty followed the former two-time MVP all season. He didn't do much to quiet any of it either. Around the league, that kind of noise becomes part of how you get evaluated. Fair or not, that's how it works.

For a competitor of Giannis' stature, that kind of ambiguity is the real issue. And that's what defined his 2025–26 season. With the 31-year-old soon entering the later stages of his prime, it's a frustrating place to be, regardless of the numbers.

Chris Paul

It's unclear whether Paul ever truly envisioned a retirement tour with the Los Angeles Clippers . What is clear is that nothing close to it ever materialized. That alone stands as one of the more disappointing subplots of what The Point God could have hoped for this season. For CP3, it's hard to picture any version of events where he would have been satisfied with how things played out.

Ultimately, reports pointed to growing tension within the organization. There was also talk about friction tied to disagreements at the decision-making level. For a player long known for being vocal, that dynamic never really settled before the Clippers sent him home in early December 2025.

His 21st and final NBA season ended after just 16 games. Paul averaged 3.3 assists, 2.9 points and 1.8 rebounds, a sharp drop from his previous year in San Antonio. That same Spurs team went on to reach the Finals, while Paul's season was already over before the calendar turned.

The Clippers remain one of the defining stops in his iconic career. However, this last chapter with the franchise will be remembered as a bitter ending. That's especially true considering the role he had embraced as a mentor in San Antonio not long before.

Despite a season to forget, Paul's legacy isn't in question. The future Hall of Famer retires as one of the greatest playmakers the game has seen.

James Harden

From one point guard legend in Paul to the next — Harden . His inclusion here is a mix of familiar narratives that have followed him for years and an off-court story that broke shortly after the season ended.

When you think of elite players who have historically dominated regular seasons but still can't get their team over the hump, Harden's name comes up. If it hadn't before, it probably did after his playoff run with the Cleveland Cavaliers this year.

The Beard averaged 19.2 points, 5.5 assists and 5.1 rebounds across 18 games. Decent numbers on paper. But outside the first-round series against Toronto , there were stretches where he fell short. At times, he even looked like he was actively holding the team back.

During those moments, the flashy game wasn't translating. The playmaking got sloppy. Turnovers piled up. And the defense was exactly what it's always been. So what are you actually offering a team trying to compete? Not much.

That Harden showed all of that again in the playoffs is probably not how he envisioned the season going. And he certainly didn't envision the headlines that came just weeks after it ended.

Those headlines broke when he was arrested in Houston on an illegal weapons charge. He was stopped at 3:41 a.m. after a handgun was found in his vehicle. Taken into custody, then released on $100 bail.

The Beard's due in court June 22. However that plays out, it's just one more thing piling onto a season he'd probably rather not think about.

This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Jun 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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