Trail Blazers center Robert Williams III will miss at least four-to-six weeks after undergoing an arthroscopic procedure no his left knee, according to NBA insider Chris Haynes (Twitter link). Williams had been dealing with inflammation in the knee.
Given that there are just over three weeks of games remaining on the Trail Blazers’ schedule, Williams will almost certainly miss the rest of the regular season.
Portland is only two games back of the No. 10 seed, so if they were to qualify for the play-in and then earn a playoff berth, there’s technically a chance Williams could return at some point in the postseason during that four-to-six week timeline. However, that’s no certainty even in the unlikely event the Blazers advance that far.
Williams hasn’t played since Feb. 20 and has been limited to 20 games (three starts) with Portland this season. He’s averaging 5.8 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per night. Williams has appeared in just 26 total games since being traded to the Trail Blazers prior to the start of the 2023/24 season.
At full health, Williams is one of the premier defenders in the league. He averaged 10.0 points, 9.6 rebounds, 0.9 steals and 2.2 blocks in the 2021/22 season, finishing seventh in Defensive Player of the Year voting. He has appeared in 235 career games.
With Williams and fellow big man Deandre Ayton dealing with injuries this year, rookie center Donovan Clingan has filled in as Portland’s starting center in recent weeks and is performing admirably.
The Celtics got the better of this deal. I loved Time Lord while he was here in Boston. Sucks he can’t stay healthy
My Shayla :(
Sucks to see talented players have their careers so heavily impacted by injuries. He definitely falls onto that category unfortunately.
in other news, water is wet…
He’s averaged 17 games per season the last 3 seasons, and his first 4 weren’t much better.
Hard to feel badly for a guy that’ll collect $40M over his last 3 seasons, but this injury likely means he never sees the floor again in the NBA. No team wants to give a roster spot to a player this injury-prone.
Glad he got his money but he plays 12 games a year, retire
lol both vets with injuries, how convenient for their rookie. Maybe don’t draft a center when you have so many already. Portland is a mess.
That makes no sense. If they hadn’t drafted the center, they wouldn’t have had any healthy centers because, as you just mentioned, all of their veteran centers are injured.
Is Portland the team which has performed the best vis-a-vis Las Vegas odds? If that is a mess …