On Sunday, the extremely promising career of Victor Wembanyama has taken an important stage: he played in his first stars match. He turned out to be, in all likelihood, the last match of his second Nba season. Wembanyama should now miss the rest of the season because of Deep venous thrombosis in his right shoulder. What a difference a few days can do.
The priority is now to ensure rapid recovery. According to all the accounts, the Spurs expect it to be an isolated incident. Wembanyama’s long -term prospects are positive, and the future of San Antonio remains brilliant because of this. But what about the short term? What does the absence of Wembanyama mean for the rest of this season for the Spurs and the rest of the League? Here are some of the key training effects for Thursday news.
1. Weby is out of racing for awards
Wembanyama will end this season after playing 65 games. This obviously removes him from the race for a certain number of honors that he was online to receive. He will no longer be the defensive player of the year, and he will not be chosen in a team all defense or all-nba after the season.
Wembanyama obviously has a lot of time to save trophies, and he is still two years old to gain eligibility for the more lucrative pink Rule Max contract. In all likelihood, it does, but withdrawing it from the race this season makes other players from the contractual advantages that accompany these honors.
The big “winner” here, if someone can really win an injury, would be Evan Mobley. Last off -season, Mobley would have signed an extension of a maximum recruit of $ 224 million over five years with the riders. However, this contract would have been included of the mechanical staircases of the rules which could bring to $ 269 million. Mobley was already an all-nba candidate, but withdraw Wembanyama from the image almost certainly opens a place. Wembanyama almost fled with the defensive player of the year (he was a favorite of -2000 Thursday morning before the news of the injury was broken). Now Mobley is in the middle of the race. Either the honor would make Mobley eligible for these mechanical staircases of the Rose rule.
The same goes for Jaren Jackson Jr., although he fights for a real super maximum of 35% as a little older player. Jackson winning eligibility has a chance to be a win-win situation for him and the Grizzlies. Memphis exchanged Marcus Smart on the deadline largely to free up ceiling space during the summer. They did this by thinking that they may need to renegotiate the Jackson and extension contract. However, if Jackson is eligible for Supermax, they will simply be able to stick his new mega extension to his existing agreement without touching this ceiling space, giving them a little more flexibility in the short term to work.
Cade Cunningham and Scottie Barnes would both have the same mechanical staircases of rose rules in their agreements as Mobley does, but are only for the NBA, not a defensive player of the year. Trae Young stands out as a possible all-NBA candidate who could be eligible for a 35% supermax with his current team also, although considering that he was an all-star of replacement, the chances are probably against him. Each slot machine with regard to these eligibility rules, so the removal of Wembanyama from these races has a chance to earn a lot of money.
2. The spurs probably go to the lottery
Even with D’Aaron Fox in a trailer, it is difficult to imagine that the Spurs reach the playoffs without Wembanyama. They are 3.5 games on seeded n ° 10 of the Western Conference when writing this article, and their clear note for the season decreases by more than 10 points for 100 possessions each time wembanyama is absent. There is no backup center proven on the list right now. Zach Collins was exchanged in the Fox agreement. Charles Bassey is out of rotation, and the same goes for Sandro Mamukelashvili. Jeremy Sochan has played a rescue center, and he will probably continue to take a look at a queue of small balls. But the backbone of the San Antonio list is now absent.
This probably will not have an impact on the race for the playoffs, but it could be quite significant in the draft. Spurs do not really hurt young talents, but now they will probably add another choice of lottery to the mixture next summer. If the lottery was held today, San Antonio would have the 10th best rating. The Spurs are currently on par with the Trail Blazers in the column of victories, there is therefore room so that they can get the dashboard according to the way the rest of the season takes place. Note that the Spurs also control the choice of first unprotected round of Atlanta, so that they can potentially have two lottery choices in June.
It may not be what the Spurs planned when they exchanged against Fox, but it is obviously not a bad place. It is a very solid draft class, and if Wembanyama continues to progress as it has so far, the Spurs will not use their own choice in the first round at the lottery for a while. It never hurts to add an additional first -rate talent.
3. Spurs will have to reconsider the off -season plans
Now, we are venturing into a speculative territory here, but it should be noted that the Spurs have only obtained five Fox games so far. It is obviously not enough time to fairly judge its adjustment with Wembanyama, or how the rest of the young talent of San Antonio corresponds to the pair of them.
So what does that mean? Well, a two -month sample could have given them an idea of knowing whether the three -men’s trio, Stephon Castle and Jeremy Sochan is viable together, for example, as a relatively limited shooters. These three are always available, but the experience is no longer fair because it does not include the unusual shooting of Wembanyama from the central position. Now Spurs must essentially make it go back next season to really test the way these outgoing players adapt.
Is this the end of the world? No Fox tradeSpurs have proven to be comfortable to play slowly in their construction around Wembanyama. Another year of evaluation will not hurt anyone. This simply means that we can probably exclude another big business such as the Fox agreement up to at least 2026.
