Victor Wembanyama is officially back.
The San Antonio Spurs kicked off the 2025-26 NBA season by holding their media day festivities on Monday, and the biggest news of the day centered on the biggest dude in the building. After missing the final two months of last season when doctors diagnosed him with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder, Wembanyama — the 7-foot-4 former No. 1 overall draft pick, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year runner-up, 2025 All-Star and ascendant megastar expected to propel the Spurs back to postseason contention — has been cleared for a full return to competition heading into the new campaign, according to San Antonio head coach Mitch Johnson.
“Victor’s cleared,” Johnson said Monday morning. “He’s been cleared by our medical team and by the league. … He’s been ramping up. He’s been in a really good place.”
That, obviously, is exceptionally good news for the Spurs, who have their sights set on ending a six-year postseason drought that stands as the longest fallow period in franchise history … and, frankly, for basketball fans all over the world, who will soon get a reminder of just what the league was missing for the final couple of months of last season.
With barely 100 NBA games under his belt, Wembanyama has already firmly stamped himself as one of the most breathtaking and productive game-changers to enter the league in ages. When his season ended just after the All-Star break, he was averaging 24.3 points, 11 rebounds, a league-leading 3.8 blocks, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals in 33.2 minutes per game. Only five other players in NBA history had ever averaged 20-10-3-3-1 for a full season, and only three — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson — had done it more than once. Wembanyama did it in each of his first two NBA seasons, and did it while shooting just under league-average from 3-point range on nearly nine attempts per game.
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Wembanyama finished last season with the fifth-highest block rate in NBA history, rejecting 10.1% of opponents’ 2-point shots during his floor time; only Manute Bol has ever swatted a higher percentage. He’s the first player ever to log at least three made 3-pointers and three blocked shots per game. Even limited to just 46 games, he ranked in the top 10 in the NBA in estimated plus-minus — where he finished fifth, behind only the top three finishers in MVP voting (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo) and Luka Dončić — box plus-minus, player efficiency rating, Kostya Medvedovsky’s DARKO, The BBall Index’s LEBRON, Jeremias Engelmann’s xRAPM, and a slew of other metrics.
All of which is to say: The Spurs are welcoming back not only a transcendent, top-10-caliber talent, but also the centerpiece of everything they hope to do and be on both ends of the floor. Maximizing Wembanyama’s present served as the driving force behind the decisions to trade for De’Aaron Fox and sign him to a maximum-salaried four-year contract extension, and to add rock-solid reserve center Luke Kornet in free agency; maximizing his future led the Spurs to swing for the fences by drafting Rutgers standout Dylan Harper with the No. 2 selection in June’s 2025 NBA Draft.
San Antonio enters the season both teeming with young talent, including reigning Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle, and feeling the weight of some expectations — to turn years of high draft picks and savvy maneuvering into more wins than losses for the first time since 2019; to climb from 13th in the West back into the ranks of play-in contention, if not higher; and to be playing games of consequence come springtime. The stakes rise quickly when you’ve got a transformational figure like Wembanyama in the fold; and now, after months of medical treatment and an offseason of intrigue, he’s now officially once again ready to roll.
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