Three takeaways from the impact of Victor Wembanyama’s season-ending injury

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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…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/three-takeaways-impact-victor-wembanyamas-013748921.html

Author : NBC Sports

Publish date : 2025-02-21 01:37:00

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