Where will the Spurs turn without Victor Wembanyama?

Victor Wembanyama’s presence — 7-foot-infinity with arms long enough to box with God, able to block 3-pointers from inside the paint and finish at the rim from outside it — is overwhelming. The challenge now facing the San Antonio Spurs? Finding a way to make sure his absence isn’t.

What was initially diagnosed as calf tightness, sidelining Wembanyama from San Antonio’s Sunday win over the Sacramento Kings, was revealed after an MRI to be a left calf strain. While the Spurs declined to provide a timetable beyond “providing updates as appropriate,” the ailment is expected to sideline the 21-year-old superstar for at least a few weeks …

… and, given how dicey a proposition it can be to play on a strained calf, how precarious lower-extremity injuries can be for a figure as towering as Wembanyama, and how absolutely vital the French phenom’s health is to the Spurs’ present and future, you’d expect San Antonio’s braintrust to err on the side of exercising an exceptional amount of caution when it comes to clearing the big fella to return to the fray.

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“Obviously, we’ve seen around this league recently, the calf-tightness thing is not something you want to take lightly,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson told reporters Sunday. “Don’t want to push it there.”

Two weeks on the shelf would cost Wembanyama seven games. Three weeks would cost him 10. Any more than that — league sources told Tom Osrborn of the San Antonio Express-News that Wemby will be re-evaluated in two to three weeks, which isn’t the same thing as saying he’ll be back in two to three weeks — could, for the second consecutive season, cost Wembanyama his eligibility for year-end individual awards like Most Valuable Player and Defensive Player of the Year, as well as recognition on the All-NBA and All-Defensive Teams. (And, if he would’ve gone on to actually win MVP this season, making himself eligible for the 30% max on the rookie-scale extension he can sign this summer, it’d cost him tens of millions of dollars, too.)

Wembanyama ticketed himself for serious consideration on all of those ballots with a sensational…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/where-will-the-spurs-turn-without-victor-wembanyama-185905768.html

Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2025-11-18 18:59:00

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