Victor Wembanyama will travel with the San Antonio Spurs to Portland for playoff games this weekend while going through the league’s concussion protocol.
Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Thursday that the star center is “progressing” and has not been ruled out for Game 3 against the Trail Blazers on Friday night.
The best-of-seven first-round Western Conference Series is tied at 1-1 with Game 4 also in Portland on Sunday afternoon.
“He looks good,” Johnson said. “The update is that he is following each protocol, he’s progressing and he’ll travel with the team.”
“To my knowledge, we haven’t even had that discussion (about ruling Wembanyama out),” Johnson continued. “The protocol is the protocol. The league is who’s mostly at the top of that. We’ll just hope that he continues to progress. Whenever that timing is, that’s when it will be.
“We’ll just kind of keep going through the protocol, and hopefully he continues to progress. It’s pretty straightforward. So, obviously we hope he’ll be back at some point. But we’ll allow the protocol to play out. There’s nothing more important than his health.”
Wembanyama, the unanimous NBA Defensive Player of the Year, sustained the concussion during the Trail Blazers’ 106-103 win in San Antonio in Game 2 on Tuesday night.
He hit his face on the floor at near-full speed after being knocked off his feet during a drive to the basket with 8:57 remaining in the second period, with the contact leaving him dazed enough to struggle standing up before jogging off the floor to the locker room.
The Spurs had some success without their star this season. Wembanyama missed 18 games this season with various injuries, with San Antonio going 12-6 in those games.
The 7-foot-4 Wembanyama, 22, averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and a league-leading 3.1 blocks in 64 games (55 starts) in the regular season. He scored 35 points in San Antonio’s 111-98 win in Game 1 last Sunday but finished Tuesday’s loss with five points in 12 minutes.
