This sucks.
Victor Wembanyama — already one of the top 10-15 players in the league in just his second season — is expected to be out for the remainder of this season due to deep vein thrombosis (a serious blood clot) in his right shoulder. It’s a blow not just to the Spurs but to fans around the league, who have been captivated by the 7’5″ center who can handle the rock, shoot threes and is a defensive force. Wemby averaged 24.3 points and 11 rebounds a game this season, and leads the league in blocked shots at 3.8 a game, although that stat doesn’t begin to paint the full picture of his defensive impact.
The Spurs are optimistic this is not a long-term issue, but he’s not touching an NBA court again this season.
With Wembanyama out, some big ripples are spreading across the league. Here are three takeaways from the fallout of Wemby’s injury.
Defensive Player of the Year thrown open
Victor Wembanyama had a Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes kind of lead in the Defensive Player of the Year race. It was over.
Not anymore. Wemby played 46 games this season and will fall well short of the league’s 65-game minimum to qualify for any major award. Not only is Wemby not winning his first DPOY award this year, he’s not going to make All-NBA (which was a lock), nor is he eligible for MVP votes (he would have gotten some fourth- and fifth-place votes).
Now the DPOY race is wide open.
The two favorites are Evan Mobley (who anchors the Cavaliers’ top-10 defense), and a former DPOY winner in Jaren Jackson Jr., who is at the heart of the Grizzlies’ top-10 defense. This season’s challenge with this award is that the best defenses in the league — such as Oklahoma City, Houston and Boston — are balanced, deep defensive squads that don’t have a single focal point, so there is no obvious player to nominate from them. That said, expect Lugenz Dort of the Thunder to get some votes. Other names to watch in that race are the Clippers’ Ivica Zubac, Dyson Daniels of the Hawks, and maybe Amen Thompson from Houston.
Wembanyama being out also means a spot has opened up on the All-NBA roster at the end of the season (that vote is positionless so that extra spot could go to a lot of players).
Spurs headed lottery
The Spurs’ playoff drought is about to reach six seasons.
That was likely already happening. Coming out of the All-Star break, the Spurs are 3.5 games back of the final play-in spot and need to leapfrog quality teams in the West (two of Phoenix, Golden State and Sacramento, for example) to reach the postseason. The injury to the Spurs’ best player seals their fate.
Part of that is because this team is very thin along the front line after Wembanyama, especially after Zach Collins was traded to Sacramento in the De’Aaron Fox deal. Charles Bassey has been thrust into the role of the No. 1 center on the roster, and Bismack Biyombo — just signed to a 10-day contract — is his backup. That’s not going to get it done.
San Antonio is headed to the lottery — they would have the No. 10 pick as of today, but could move up if the ping-pong balls favor them — which leads to a rotation question: Will the Spurs start De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle as their backcourt so they can gain experience together, and ask Chris Paul to come off the bench? This season is now about development for the future in San Antonio, and at his age (39), CP3 is not a long-term part of that future.
Expect Spurs to be aggressive in offseason
The days of the Spurs slow-playing building a contender around Wembanyama are over — and this injury does not change that. San Antonio needs to be aggressive this summer.
Part of it is that Wembanyama has forced their hand — he’s been that good. However, the financial realities of the modern NBA also demand that the Spurs act now. Much like NFL teams with great young quarterbacks — such as the Texans with C.J. Stroud or the Commanders with Jayden Daniels — the clock is ticking to build out the roster with high-quality players before the star player becomes very expensive and roster building under a salary cap gets much more challenging.
Wembanyama is going to get paid. In the summer of 2026 he can sign a max extension that could be worth up to $326 million over five years (that number assumes he qualifies for a Rose Rule extension, which he will if he wins DPOY or is named to a couple of All-NBA teams before then, both of which are likely). That new contract kicks in the summer of 2027. San Antonio has much more financial flexibility over the next two summers than it will after that.
The Spurs have already started to be aggressive, trading for De’Aaron Fox from the Kings to be the long-term point guard next to Wembanyama. Rookie Stephon Castle, along with Devin Vassell and Keldon Johnson, could have important roles in what the Spurs are building, as might Jeremy Sochan. But there is a long, long way to go with this roster.
Wembanyama’s injury cannot slow the Spurs down. They have to move fast now.
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