NBA players now have to appear in at least 65 games in order to qualify for various awards. Wemby, as of the injury announcement, has only played in 46 this year.
SAN ANTONIO — The Spurs announced that 2025 NBA All-Star Victor Wembanyama is expected to miss the rest of the season with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder, which means he isn’t eligible to win various awards—including Defensive Player of the Year.
Fresh off his first All-Star Game appearance, Wemby came back to Texas receiving disappointing news that his second season has been cut short. And though playoff success is the ultimate goal, the diagnosis has short-term repercussions for his individual legacy.
NBA players now have to appear in at least 65 games in order to qualify for MVP, All-NBA Teams and other awards. Wemby, as of the injury announcement, has only played in 46.
It’s just the second season of that new rule for the league. But it means Wembanyama won’t be eligible to be Defensive Player of the Year, an award most experts thought he was a lock for.
According to Dataskrive, Wemby was the landslide favorite to win the award, having -2500 odds of winning it before the news, with Cleveland’s Evan Mobley and Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. tied for second with +3000 odds.
Wemby currently leads the NBA with 3.8 blocks per game, 1.4 more than second-place Walker Kessler of the Utah Jazz. He also has 176 blocks, 74 more than second-place Kessler.
If he had won the award, Wemby would’ve joined fellow Spur Alvin Robertson as the only two players to win DPOY in their second season. Robertson did that in the 1985-86 season, when he averaged 3.7 steals per game.
At 21, he also would’ve been the youngest player to win DPOY, beating out Jaren Jackson Jr. when he won it at 23 years old in the 2022-23 season. Notably, former Spurs Kawhi Leonard and the aforementioned Alvin Robertson also won the award at 23.
Finishing second last season, this campaign was supposedly the year for the French star to become the perennial favorite to win the award for the foreseeable future, given his 7-foot-3 size and unworldly wingspan.
With all-around stats of 24.3 points, 11 rebounds and 3.7 assists, Wemby was also well on track to land on an All-NBA team. He would’ve been the youngest since Luka Doncic made the first team in the 2019-20 season at the age of 20.
Acknowledgements and awards most fans thought were givens for the young star now become “what ifs” etched in NBA history, as Wemby’s second season has come to a seemingly anticlimactic end after a hot and promising start.
Meanwhile for the Spurs, they sit as the 12th seed in the Western Conference with a 23-29 record, 3.5 games back from the 10th seed entering Thursday’s game against Phoenix. Without Wembayama this season, the Spurs are 2-4, albeit all those games came before their acquisition of former NBA All-Star De’Aaron Fox.
Without Wemby and with 30 games left in the season, the Spurs have an uphill battle if they want to make the play-in, as they navigate the rest of the year without their superstar center.