The French sports newspaper L’Equipe published a photo of Victor Wembanyama across the entirety of its front page on Friday, the San Antonio star looking down with his hands on his hips.
“Coup D’Arret” was the headline in big, white letters. The translation, in this case, means Knockout Blow.
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For now, yes, Wembanyama’s season has been dealt a knockout blow. Deep vein thrombosis in the right shoulder is the diagnosis, meaning he has a blood clot. The Spurs, in consultation with their medical team, quickly determined that Wembanyama will not play again this season. That’s the bad news. The good news is that those same doctors have told the Spurs that they believe this is not a career-threatening issue.
“I know Victor loves to play the game,” acting Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “You saw how he competed during All-Star weekend. And he wants to be with his teammates. I know that. He’d want to finish this thing out.”
All the Spurs have said, in terms of specifics about Wembanyama’s health, is that the diagnosis was DVT and that they are hopeful of a full recovery. But the location of the clot — Wembanyama’s upper body — might provide a good reason for the optimism.
There is a type of DVT that appears when a blood vessel in someone’s upper arm can be compressed by a rib (the top rib is removed in some cases to relieve the compression, if that is the cause) or a muscle. The Spurs have not said if that is the sort of issue that Wembanyama is currently dealing with, but if that is the case then the belief that he could be ready to play again in a few months would seem valid.
Doctors will determine, if they haven’t already, how the clot formed and why it is in his shoulder. Most importantly, they will ascertain if the clot was unprovoked (which would be bad) or provoked (which would be good and would likely rule out a genetic issue).
“You just wish for him to be healthy, period,” Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox told TNT in the on-court postgame interview after San Antonio — in its first game since the diagnosis — beat Phoenix on Thursday night. “No matter if he’s able to play basketball or not, you just want him to be healthy.”
It has been a season with major health issues for the Spurs, affecting probably the two most important people in the organization. Gregg Popovich, the NBA’s all-time win leader and longest-tenured current coach, had a stroke in early November; he’s improving but has not coached since, which is why Johnson has assumed the acting role. And now, Wembanyama is sidelined as well.
The 7-foot-3 center from France was averaging 24.3 points, 11 rebounds, 3.8 blocks and 3.7 assists this season, well on his way to probably winning defensive player of the year and perhaps earning an All-NBA team nod as well.
Chris Paul came to San Antonio last summer to play for Popovich and play with Wembanyama. Fox was acquired in a trade earlier this month so he could team up with Wembanyama. Obviously, things have not gone as planned and San Antonio is facing a bit of a climb in the final seven weeks of the season just to get into the play-in tournament in the loaded Western Conference.
“I’m thinking about Vic,” Phoenix All-Star forward Kevin Durant said. “I’m sure the whole basketball world is thinking about him right now. Somebody like that who has a strong mind, strong will to go out there and recover and get better … I don’t even know Vic well, but I can just tell that's what he’s about. That’s his makeup. And I’m looking forward to seeing him back out there.”
Plenty of athletes have dealt with the clotting issue before, and it is certainly not a one-size-fits-all problem.
Serena Williams came back to dominate women’s tennis after a clotting issue following the birth of her daughter; Williams needed four surgeries to address the matter. Chris Bosh had to eventually retire from basketball after he was diagnosed with clots. In hockey, Tomas Fleischmann developed clots and went on to play for years afterward; Tomas Vokoun needed surgery to relieve his clotting problem and never played in the NHL again.
The earliest that Wembanyama might play a real game again is August, and that’s if he decides to join France for the European championships — one of the biggest tournaments in the world. Wembanyama spoke at length last summer during the Paris Olympics about how much wearing his country’s uniform means to him, so it seems logical that he would at least strongly consider participating if he was medically cleared to do so.
Boris Diaw, who spent time playing for San Antonio and is still beloved by the organization, runs the French basketball federation now. He’s not speculating on EuroBasket, saying those questions are for the coming months.
“This is absolutely not the time to project ourselves on this kind of question,” Diaw told French reporters, according to L’Equipe. “I especially hope he’s well. It’s never easy to be injured for a long time, to miss a lot of games. I guess it’s hard for him, I know how much he loves to play. To be away from the courts for so long ... I can totally believe that it will be complicated for him.”
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