NBA fans got a bit of bad news yesterday when the San Antonio Spurs announced that Victor Wembanyama would be out for the rest of the season due to deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which caused a blood clot in his right shoulder. The sophomore center seemed to have the Defensive Player of the Year award all but locked up, but now that he won’t be playing in the required 65 games, he’s unfortunately ineligible to win it.
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The Spurs are outside the playoff picture, but they’re only three games back of the final play-in spot, so they still could have snuck in. It also would have been helpful for Wemby to get more time with his new teammate De’Aaron Fox, whom the Spurs traded for at the deadline.
They still need to prioritize Wemby’s health and long-term future ahead of anything else though, which is why they’re treading carefully with such a scary health situation.
Shannon Sharpe was shocked when he saw that Wemby was getting shut down because he’d just seen him play in the All-Star Game and didn’t have the full story yet.
As Sharpe said on his Nightcap podcast, he knew San Antonio’s history as pioneers of the load management era for the way they used to rest Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Kawhi Leonard, and he thought the organization was once again being overly protective of its player.
“They normally err on the side of caution, but I was like, ‘Damn, they’re being overly cautious with this situation.’ Once I read it, then I understood,” the NFL Hall of Famer said.
Once Sharpe understood the seriousness of the situation, he offered up his thoughts and prayers to Wemby for a speedy recovery.
What do we know about DVT and how it affects athletes?
Victor Wembanyama isn’t the first star athlete to deal with DVT. Chris Bosh had his career cut short by the disease, but Wemby’s outlook appears to be much more positive. Bosh had DVT in his legs, which led to a pulmonary embolism in his shoulder.
Wemby has it in his shoulder, where the clots tend to be smaller. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, UCLA vascular surgeon Hugh A. Gelabert said that shoulder clots usually contain a much lower risk, and he has experience treating the disease, as he removed a clot from Brandon Ingram’s shoulder in 2019.
Bosh attempted to make a comeback from DVT, but he never made it back to the court. Ingram was diagnosed in March of 2019 and missed the rest of the year, but came back the next year and won the Most Improved Player award while being selected to his first All-Star team. It’s believed that his condition is very similar to Wemby’s.
Ausar Thompson is another young NBA player who has had blood clots. He missed the end of the 2023-24 season and the beginning of this season before returning in November.
Outside the basketball world, Serena Williams has dealt with blood clots for over a decade. She was first diagnosed in 2011 but went on to win 10 more major singles titles after that, though the clots did cause complications for her when she gave birth to her daughter in 2018.
Victor Wembanyama is the most exciting young player the game has ever seen, so hopefully he’s able to overcome this with rest and treatment.
