Victor Wembanyama is one of the faces of the NBA, the star of the San Antonio Spurs and already one of the biggest names in basketball.
And his season is likely over, after the Spurs announced Thursday that he has been diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder.
The 7-foot-3 center from France was averaging 24.3 points, 11 rebounds, 3.8 blocks and 3.7 assists this season. Since blocked shots became an official statistic, only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — nearly a half-century ago — finished a season with those numbers or better.
Some questions and answers about Wembanyama’s situation:
What is deep vein thrombosis?
By the Mayo Clinic’s definition, deep vein thrombosis — or DVT — “occurs when a blood clot forms in one or more of the deep veins in the body, usually in the legs.” The Spurs say Wembanyama was diagnosed with DVT in his right shoulder, and doctors will now work to determine how and why that happened before coming up with a plan for treatment.
Among the major risks of DVT: Clots breaking loose, traveling through the bloodstream and reaching the lungs. That does not appear to have happened to Wembanyama, at least based on the diagnosis the team provided Thursday.
How will Wembanyama be treated?
Doctors who spoke Thursday to The Associated Press — none of them involved in Wembanyama’s treatment — said it’s a virtual certainty that the French star will be prescribed blood-thinning medication to address the clot.
The longstanding thinking was that athletes who participate in contact sports like basketball should not play while on blood thinners, or anticoagulants, because of the risk of bleeding. However, an article published Thursday by the American College of Cardiology — hours before the news about Wembanyama broke — said playing “competitive sports may be reasonable for athletes receiving full anticoagulation or partial anticoagulation.”
What does this mean for the Spurs?
In short, it’s not good. The Spurs are not currently in the playoff picture and faced an uphill fight just to get into the play-in tournament — and now will have to finish the season without their best player.
San Antonio still has talent: Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes and newly acquired De’Aaron Fox are a formidable veteran trio. But everything is built around Wembanyama.
And the Spurs will be without their biggest star while also missing the franchise’s leader. Coach Gregg Popovich had a stroke in November and has been away from the team for nearly the entire season.
What does this mean for the NBA?
The league’s MVP for each of the last six years has been a player born somewhere other than the U.S. and that streak is likely to extend to seven this season — with Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the stellar Oklahoma City guard, and Serbia’s Nikola Jokic, the three-time MVP from Denver, expected to be the favorites.
But it robs the league of one of its brightest stars for the stretch run.
Everything Wembanyama does is huge news in France and in San Antonio, and he’s already one of the league’s most popular players. If he and the Spurs had made a playoff run, his star would have only shined brighter.
Why can’t he win an NBA award now?
The league is in its second year of what’s commonly called the 65-game rule, which basically means a player has to appear in at least 65 games to be eligible for most end-of-season awards like MVP.
It also applies to defensive player of the year, which Wembanyama was favored to win. He has played in only 46 games, meaning he will not be on the NBA’s ballot for that trophy when the voting is conducted in April.
Wembanyama won rookie of the year last season. If this situation happened then, he still could have won the rookie honor — that one doesn’t fall under the 65-game-minimum policy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.