San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama will miss the remainder of the season after being diagnosed with a blood clot in his shoulder. Dave DuFour and Zena react to the news about Wemby, the Knicks overtime win, and the Denver Nuggets rise up the west standings. Then, the Athletic’s Sam Amick joins the show to breakdown the timeline for Wembanyama’s diagnosis, the fallout, and whether the Spurs will be searching for a new coach.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita & Sam AmickExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodyJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Ua2qrEe7Read Sam’s story on Victor Wembanyama: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6149559/2025/02/20/victor-wembanyama-blood-clot-spurs/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: Why is Victor Wembanyama out for the season?
A little bit of bad news to start the day. As you guys probably know, if you're listening, Victor Wiminyama has been diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder. He's going to be out for the season. This is awful news for people like us, Zena, that watch and love basketball every single night. The good news is he's going to be back at the start of next season.
Chapter 2: What does Wemby's absence mean for the Spurs?
The Spurs expect him to be completely healthy. This is just a bump in the road. So that's the great news. But in the short term, Zena, we have to adjust to life without Victor Wiminyama for the rest of the season.
Yeah, this sucks. Like for basketball fans, not only for the San Antonio Spurs, but universally, like this guy was the face of the league to be, right? When you think about what Victor Wemenyama, you talk about levitational player, a guy that's crafty, that's wily, that does these methodical moves on the court and blows your mind because he's 7'4".
it's like, you're not supposed to be able to do that in this lanky body that you've got. And he entertains us all with everything that he does out on the floor. And it's really unfortunate that now that has come to an end, but you're right in that it's good news that this was caught because deep vein thrombosis is an incredibly scary thing that if not caught could have fatal circumstances.
Thank you.
Chapter 3: How did the Knicks secure their overtime win?
yeah again stick around guys after the break Sam Amick he wrote a whole piece on it and he joins the show and breaks down the entire timeline including like this has been going on for a few weeks now with Wemby so definitely stick around for that Zena it feels weird because we did have a basketball game Wednesday night but we're now officially back from the all-star break although there's an argument to be made that in some of these games the guys are still on vacation they're a little sluggish
Yeah. Yeah.
The Knicks and Bulls had a game in which I don't know if we could say they really played defense. It was an entertaining game, but not a great one. The Knicks did did do the thing that they do when they pulled out a tough win. Jalen Brunson hits a clutch shot that that sets up an opportunity for the Bulls to get a game winning shot. And
Zena, Mikael Bridges has a clutch block essentially at the buzzer to force overtime. Is this the best block this season?
Because of the circumstances and what should set it up? Absolutely. Because it's one thing to have a block just because it's just nasty and disrespectful. But it's another thing because it actually set them up to be able to go on and win the game. So, yeah, shout out to Mikael Bridges for the athletic play.
Yeah, and again, Jalen Brunson, just what he does, end of games, the ability to always get a shot. That continued over into overtime where the defense just, in my opinion, they sell out for Jalen Brunson, and he winds up creating these easy looks. He hit Carl Anthony Towns for a really nice little pocket pass that I thought caught Towns off guard.
Towns hits a little floater, and essentially the game was over after that. But Carl Anthony Towns puts up 32 points and 18 rebounds. Thank you, Dave.
I was wondering if you were going to only give some love to the guard. Don't worry.
Carlinson Towns was insane. That's right. You're big on big. So look, I mean, what he's been doing rebounding. I think what he's been doing offensively, he's a lock for all NBA. But this rebounding is is pretty intense. And when we think about the Knicks, we know that there's such, you know, rebounding is so important for them. It has been historically.
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Chapter 4: What was the impact of Bobby Portis's suspension?
You know why you weren't early? Because you peeped that Russell Westbrook-Jokic connection. Now, I'm not going to lie. Russell Westbrook wasn't great last night. But that was kind of the spark that got things going for the Nuggets. And of course... Jamal Murray getting into the shape of getting into the bag that we know he has.
He has been cooking from the free throw line, just being able to take his defender. And also the bench has stepped up. I've been screaming Julian Strother's name since the top of this season. I knew that once his three ball got into shape, that the Nuggets would be in a better position. And right now, Michael Malone has things rolling with the rotations that he's putting out there. They look good.
They look good.
They do look good. DeAndre Jordan, by the way, got another dunk. This guy is going to dunk till he's 50. Correct.
Yeah.
And he will be on a basketball team until then. Guys, stick around after the break. Sam Amick goes inside on what's going on with the Spurs and Victor Wimidyama and even lets us know that the Spurs may be searching for a new coach this summer.
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Obviously, the biggest news of the day, Spurs center and generational big man Victor Wimonyama has been diagnosed with a clot, a blood clot in his shoulder. He's going to miss the rest of the season. So we had to bring Sam Amick back in here because he's got all the inside info on that. Sam, where did this come from? What happened?
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Chapter 5: How are the Denver Nuggets performing lately?
Chapter 6: What are the implications of the playoff race?
even more than before they began the testing process and thankfully found something that if not detected could have certainly been a lot worse i would never pretend to be a doctor on this show or any other but you know it's not a real complicated problem you're talking about a blood clot
that if it were to continue growing or being in his system, it could break free, and the life-threatening part potentially is that it can go within his system down to his lungs, and at that point, it could be an embolism, and that would be the absolute worst-case scenario. So glad they found it.
The Spurs are signaling optimism as it relates to him being ready at the start of next year, and they do feel like they avoided something that could have been a lot more serious.
You referenced your hat, Sam. The number one thing that comes to mind, especially with Wemby, is not even All-Star. It's this documentary that's dropped on Netflix. I know you had also taken the time to watch it. What were your thoughts of how you watched that documentary leading into this story breaking?
Yeah, it was kind of wild in terms of just our jobs and how, you know, you're to a certain extent, you're a prisoner of kind of where your head is at when certain news happens. And so I'm literally sitting on my couch, had just finished the sixth and final episode of Court of Gold, the Netflix doc that chronicled not just Team USA, but all the teams.
And I mean, probably four or five minutes after the end of the documentary, which I absolutely loved and which I need to highlight the Six episodes finishes with Victor Wimbanyama as the focal point, as the dramatic mic drop where Team USA wins gold. They have footage of Victor behind the scenes with tears welling in his eyes, getting spoken to by Boris Diaw, the French team GM.
Everybody's trying to lift Vic up because he's devastated that they lost to the Americans in the gold medal game. And it was such great insight. to the competitor that he is, to the care factor that he has. And then he then, they cut to the scene where Vic is talking to the media after the gold medal game loss. And he says, I'm learning and I'm afraid for everybody else.
And they said, well, who are you talking about? The NBA or the rest of the world? And he said, everybody. You know, and so it was like this dramatic, like, damn, like this guy is coming next. So, man, like from a mental standpoint for me to be watching that and just going, oh, that was some good storytelling. That was a fantastic doc.
And then to see this awful news where, you know, you're looking at a big time setback for a guy that that is obviously on the ascent is unfortunate, to say the least.
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