{"id":129807,"date":"2025-03-20T20:22:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T00:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=129807"},"modified":"2025-03-20T20:22:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T00:22:44","slug":"trail-blazers-robert-williams-knee-procedure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/20\/trail-blazers-robert-williams-knee-procedure\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Blazers Center On Ice After Arthroscopic Procedure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0<\/span>Portland Trail Blazers<\/span><\/a>\u00a0received some bad news today concerning center\u00a0<\/span>Robert Williams III<\/span><\/a>. It comes at a bad time, considering the Blazers are pushing to overtake the\u00a0<\/span>Phoenix Suns<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and Dallas Mavericks for the final play-in spot in the Western Conference. Portland has snuck up in the West over the last month and has been unexpectedly playing good basketball lately. Head coach Chauncey Billups deserves much credit for the season, as the Trail Blazers look much improved. However, the loss of Williams hurts them, and what’s worse is that his return isn’t imminent but further down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trail Blazers Center On Ice After Arthroscopic Procedure<\/h2>\n

Portland Trail Blazers Center Robert Williams III Has Procedure While Team Pushes for the Play-In<\/h3>\n

Williams only recently returned to play following a lengthy absence due to injury that kept him out much of the year. He’s played in just 20 games this season, and depending on how the remaining few weeks shake out for Portland, he may have played his last game.\u00a0<\/span>According to NBA insider Chris Haynes<\/span><\/a>, Williams had an arthroscopic procedure on his knee due to inflammation. He hasn’t played since February 20th, so this problem has <\/span>clearly<\/span> overshadowed him for a while now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Williams has dealt with injuries throughout his career, going back to his days with the Boston Celtics. When he is on the floor and healthy, though, Williams has proven to be an excellent center and a strong presence in the paint. His defensive strengths are up there, along with some of the best in the league in his position. In the limited time he did lace up for Portland this season, he averaged 5.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks while mostly coming off the bench.<\/p>\n

How This Affects the Blazers Play-In Chase Down<\/h3>\n

The Suns only recently surpassed the Mavericks in the standings, moving them to the 10th seed, dropping the Mavs outside the play-in picture. Dallas was surprisingly holding on to that final seed even in\u00a0<\/span>the middle of the strange circumstances they find themselves in<\/span><\/a>. Portland, however, has slowly and quietly crept up the standings to the point where if the Suns can’t hold on to the 10 seed, the Trail Blazers could steal it. They’re 2.0 games back from the play-in. If Phoenix were to drop the ball over the next few weeks, Portland would have a chance, and if they make good on it, Williams could return to play again, provided his team reaches the playoffs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Portland won’t be expected to do anything substantial if, by some chance, they make it that far. They would face any of the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Denver Nuggets, the Los Angeles Lakers, or the Houston Rockets. Up against any of those teams, Portland simply has no shot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Portland Trail Blazers\u00a0received some bad news today concerning center\u00a0Robert Williams III. It comes at a bad time, considering the Blazers are pushing to overtake the\u00a0Phoenix Suns\u00a0and Dallas Mavericks for the final play-in spot in the Western Conference. Portland has snuck up in the West over the last month and has been unexpectedly playing good basketball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":129808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1608,62,23],"tags":[4613],"class_list":["post-129807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-basketball","category-nba","category-trailblazers","tag-robert-williams-iii"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129811,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129807\/revisions\/129811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}