yahoo - 6/13/2026 1:53:25 PM - GMT (+2 )
Last June, Gonzaga fans had it easy. Whichever team won the NBA Finals, one former Bulldog was bringing home a ring: Andrew Nembhard and the Pacers on one side, Chet Holmgren and the OKC Thunder on the other. This year it all comes down to one guy: Kelly Olynyk, the Spurs’ lone Zag, going up against a Knicks roster with none. However the series ends, Olynyk gets to say he was part of it.
Five other former Bulldogs wrapped up seasons of their own well before the playoffs started, and each one tells a different story. One of the league’s most dependable big men fought through the toughest injury stretch of his career. Another strung together his best run in years before a foot injury ended things early. One had the best season of his career, full stop, even if the team around him couldn’t capitalize. A rookie went from undrafted to a franchise rookie assist record that had stood for three decades. And a guy who spent three years grinding through the G League finally got the call that stuck.
Domantas Sabonis | Sacramento Kings | 15.8 PPG, 11.4 RPG, 4.1 APG
Domantas Sabonis played 19 games this season, after suiting up at least 70 times in each of his first three years in Sacramento. When he was out there he still looked like himself, averaging 15.8 points, 11.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists on 54.3% shooting. Finding him out there was the issue.
He missed the opener with a preseason hamstring strain, then strung together 11 games at 17.2 and 12.3 to start the year, capped by a season-high 34 points on 14-of-24 shooting at Minnesota on Nov. 15. The next night his left knee gave out, a partial meniscus tear initially written off as soreness. The Kings, already 6-21, played the next 27 games without him, covering all of December and half of January. He returned off the bench against Washington on Jan. 17, then held to a restricted-minutes plan the rest of the month while shooting 62.1%. His final game, Feb. 5 against Memphis, saw him put up 24 points and 15 rebounds in 24 minutes before Sacramento shut him down for surgery.
The Kings finished 22-60, and Sabonis has spent most of the last two years as the centerpiece of someone else’s trade idea, with the Hornets reportedly holding exploratory talks about a deal involving Miles Bridges, Josh Green and a first-round pick. Sabonis says he expects to be back at an “All-NBA level” next season. Where that season is played remains an open question.
Zach Collins | Chicago Bulls | 9.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 1.5 APG
A wrist fracture from the preseason finale kept Collins out until December, and once he got on the floor, the production looked like nothing he’d done before. Over 10 games he shot 57.8% from the field and 42.9% from three, both career-best marks by a wide margin, averaging 9.7 points and 5.6 rebounds in 18.4 minutes a night. The Bulls went 6-4 with him in the rotation.
The highlights came in bursts: 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting in a win at Charlotte on Dec. 13, a 3-of-3 night from deep at Cleveland a week later, and a 15-point, 19-minute cameo off the bench in a win over Philadelphia on Dec. 27 in which he missed just three shots all night. The next game, against Milwaukee, he logged a season-high 24 minutes and grabbed 10 rebounds, his only double-digit rebounding night of the year. He didn’t play again. A sprained right toe turned into season-ending surgery in February.
Collins finishes the year as an unrestricted free agent, his extension from San Antonio having carried him through last year’s midseason trade to Chicago and now run out. Ten games isn’t much to go on, but by efficiency it’s the best stretch of his career. Unfortunately, the run ended before he ever got a chance to build on it.
Andrew Nembhard | Indiana Pacers | 16.9 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 7.7 APG
With Tyrese Haliburton out for the year recovering from his heartbreaking mid-finals Achilles tear last season, Nembhard took over point guard duties and delivered a career year across the board – 16.9 points and 7.7 assists a game, both well clear of his previous bests, on 44.2% shooting and a career-high 36.1% from three. His shot attempts jumped from 8.3 a game to 13.2, and he started all 57 games he played.
The season opened with trouble. Three minutes into the opener against Oklahoma City, guarding Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he strained his left shoulder and finished with four points in 17 minutes of a double-overtime loss, then missed close to two weeks. Once back, the highlights stacked up: 32 points on 11-of-20 shooting at Cleveland in late November, a 28-point, 12-assist game against Sacramento in a December win, and a season-high 19 assists in a March loss to the Lakers. January was his best month across the board, 48.9% from the field, 40 percent from three, 9.2 assists a night.
But none of it moved the win-loss column much. The Pacers finished 19-63, a year removed from the NBA Finals, and a back and neck issue ended Nembhard’s season early, costing him the final seven games.
Ryan Nembhard | Dallas Mavericks | 6.6 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 5.3 APG
Nembhard went undrafted in 2025, signed a two-way deal, and spent the first six weeks of the season in spot minutes before a real opportunity opened up. Over a 16-game stretch as a starter he looked like a keeper, peaking on Dec. 2 in Denver with 28 points on 12-of-14 shooting and 10 assists, then following it two nights later with 15 points and 13 assists against Miami.
His role shrank through January, still in the rotation but down to 16.5 minutes a night, and by February he’d been pushed out almost entirely, appearing in just two games before a bizarrely miscalculated stretch with the Texas Legends. The roster kept shifting around him and Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg (Anthony Davis dealt to Wizards at the trade deadline, Tyus Jones eventually waived), and on Feb. 28 the Mavericks converted him to a two-year standard contract with a team option for 2026-27.
March and April made the case for why. His minutes climbed back to nearly 30 a night, and the regular-season finale against Chicago was the exclamation point: 15 points, 9 rebounds and 23 assists in a 149-128 win, breaking Jason Kidd’s 31-year-old franchise rookie assist record by six.
The younger Nembhard spent a season doing what he’s always done: demolishing expectations and making all doubters look dumb for underestimating him.
Malachi Smith | Brooklyn Nets | 8.3 PPG, 3.4 RPG, 3.3 APG (15 games)
After winning WCC Sixth Man of the Year, Malachi Smith went undrafted from Gonzaga. He tthen spent three years working through four different G League affiliates: the Rip City Remix, the Wisconsin Herd, the Memphis Hustle, and finally the Long Island Nets, where he put up 14.4 points on better than 52% shooting this season. That got the attention of Brooklyn’s front office.
He signed two consecutive 10-day contracts in mid-March and made his case over the following nine games, shooting 51.1% from the field and an absolutely absurd 47.1% from three. The NBA run was highlighted by an 18-point night on 7-of-9 shooting against Sacramento on March 23. The Nets converted him to a two-year deal in early April, and his best game followed almost immediately: 19 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists against Milwaukee, a near triple-double in 43 minutes of action. He finished the season averaging 8.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists on 48.5/43.5/100 shooting splits.
One detail worth filing away: if you pull up Malachi’s ESPN player page right now, the photo is still him in a Gonzaga jersey. The NBA hasn’t gotten around to a real headshot yet, but the two-year contract’s already signed.
The Spokane to NBA pipeline shows no sign of slowing down for Gonzaga. The 2026-27 roster could feasibly already have three to four future NBA draftees already on the roster, which would be the biggest class the program has ever produced. Massamba Diop, a 7-foot-1 rim protector arriving via Arizona State, is close to a lock. Davis Fogle is a strong maybe after the kind of breakout freshman season that gets pro scouts circling. And if Izan Almansa clears the NCAA’s eligibility hurdles, a big year barreling through the new-look Pac-12 could put him back in the conversation after a near-miss draft process last year. Lots to look forward to once this roster finally, blissfully, reassuringly fills out.
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