Why the frightening diagnosis of Victor Wembanyama is different from that which Chris Bosh was confronted

The remarkable start of Victor Wembanyama to his career will be suspended due to a blood clot. On Thursday, the Spurs announced that the 7 -foot 5 -inch phenomenon had undergone a deep venous thrombosis – a blood clot – in its right shoulder and will be closed for the rest of the 2024-25 season.

It is a scary diagnosis for the 21-year-old young man and a devastating development for the Spurs, who has just acquired an All-Star of the Aaron Fox goalkeeper on the deadline for trade for a push in the playoffs. Wembanyama, who made his first appearance in All-Star during the weekend in San Francisco, solidified as one of the best players in the League this season and ranked as the rating favorites to win The defensive player of the year, leading the league into blocks by blocks by an astonishing refusal of 74.

But more subtly, Wembanyama also led the league in a different category this season which felt concerned Thursday: most of the kilometers have traveled.

San Antonio stimulate the globe this season, flying thousands of kilometers from Portland to Paris and apparently everywhere between the two. Add all the trips and you will find that the Spurs have traveled 37,852 miles by the stars break, according to Positive residual Schedules analysis. This is classified as the most for any NBA team and almost 80% more than teams like the Charlotte Hornets and the Detroit Pistons.

It is a fact which was initially alarming for this writer, who Covered Chris Bosh in Miami and chronicle the unfortunate story of blood clots This forced him to put an end to his career in the midst of his peak at the age of 31. The time of the news of Wembanyama and Bosh was also strangely similar. The two occurrences of Bosh’s blood cloty appeared at the Star break in February 2015 and 2016.

At the time, Bosh told me that in -depth trips in the NBA calendar contributed to his blood clots in his legs that had reached his lungs. Long sedentary rests on flights are not ideal for the 7 feet that need to pump blood in their members.

“You sit so much,” Said Bosh, sprawled in his locker chair. “You are like that for two hours. If you are kicked, the blood regroups somewhere and you don’t move it, it is right there.

Bosh, which measures 6 feet 11 inches, was an All-Star in its last season of 2015-16.

“We had strong hearts,” said Bosh, pointing to his feet, “but it’s far away.”

It is even longer for Wembanyama, who is the greatest player in the armed NBA with a scale that extends over eight feet wide.

But there is a key difference between Bosh’s end -of -career blood clots and the end -of -season blood clot of Wembanyama. Bosh’s blood clots did not prove to be in his shoulders like Wembanyama. And it could be a silver lining for Wembanyama.

I asked for Dr Brian SuttererOne of the doctors of the best known sports injuries, if the frequent flight of Wembanyama may have been a risk factor for his newly discovered state.

Summer did not see it this way.

“I don’t think the trips played a role,” said I said. “The most common location for deep venous thrombosis is legs, and it is often linked to pooling blood from long -term immobilization such as plane trips or recovery after surgery. If Wembanyama was a clot in the leg, the long journey could be a factor. But in the arm, its anatomy and its repetitive movement are the probable cause. »»

Suterter said that air movements – such as filming a basketball – can create what is called chest output syndrome, which occurs due to the repetitive compression and constraint on the vein under the collarbone. It is not a surprise, noted Sutter, that the Wembanyama blood clot was found inside the arm with which he shoots, his right shoulder.

Thursday evening, the acting head coach of the Spurs, Mitch Johnson, highlighted the status of Wembanyama in the future, saying that the Spurs expect Wembanyama to be ready for next season.

“His arm did not feel completely normal,” Johnson told the media. “It started with conversations on Monday. I don’t know exactly the time. It was our medical staff. They watched it, and that’s how we got here. “”

SUTTTER Congratulations Wembanyama and the medical team of Spurs to have detected it before endangering his life.

“What is terrifying about this is that the clot was probably there during the star match and could have moved to the lung and killed it,” said Suitter. “I am really impressed by the Spurs that the doctors found it in just 24 to 48 hours.”

If this is not Bosh, the closest reference point for the case of Wembanyama is another thin star, Brandon Ingram. The Toronto Raptor has undergone thoracic decompression surgery on his shooting arm in March 2019 when doctors found a blood clot in the shoulder at 21 with Los Angeles Lakers.

“I felt this little pinch in my armpits,” said Ingram at the time, “and I was just trying to understand what was wrong.”

The doctors withdrew part of his coast which compressed his vein and he was put on anticoagulants to relieve blood circulation. After this operation, Ingram was exchanged in the Pélicans in the Anthony Davis and Ingram agreement returned the following season with revenge, making its first appearance to the stars and winning the most improved player.

Ingram represents something of a better case scenario for Wembanyama, because Ingram has an average of 23 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.2 aids since his diagnosis and his procedure, without having recurrences of blood clots.

The blood clots ended the career of Bosh and the 6 -foot chipper Mirza Teletović, but these cases were found in the lungs, not the shoulder as with Ingram and Wembanyama. We don’t know exactly when Wembanyama’s blood clot has formed or for how long he has played with it. According to Sam Amick of AthleticsThe Spurs star became symptomatic even before the stars weekend, showing signs of fatigue and “low energy” for weeks.

Spurs express the optimism that Wembanyama will be ready for next season and should not have poor long -term effects. With someone in its size, this is especially good news. Studies have shown that The height is associated With a higher risk of venous thromboembolia and few people on the planet are as large as spurs.

Although the case of Wembanyama has probably not been exacerbated by all the NBA throwing jets around the world in a season of 82 games, it is a reminder that the 7 feet that populate the league have problems of Health that ordinary people do not always need to worry about still worrying about worrying about it. Unfortunately, the Wembanyama season is over. But as in the case of Igram, with the right treatment and attention to details, the best could still be ahead of Wembanyama.