Robert Williams III Out Two Weeks With Left Hamstring Strain: What it Means
The Trail Blazers' oft-injured center will spend all of preseason on the shelf.
📍 TUALATIN, Ore. — Robert Williams III’s healthy return lasted exactly one full practice.
Williams was a full go in the Trail Blazers’ first full-contact session of training camp, after undergoing season-ending right knee surgery last November that limited him to six games in his first season in Portland. He sat out Wednesday’s session with what head coach Chauncey Billups on Thursday called “general soreness”—just an expected part of the process of returning from such a long-term injury.
But on Friday, the team announced that Williams had suffered a grade 1 left hamstring strain that was expected to sideline him for two weeks.
It’s not the news anybody wanted to hear. Not Williams, who has worked for the last year to get back on the court after the knee ligament tear he suffered in November. And not the Blazers, in any scenario. The organization values Williams as a high-impact defensive big man when he can play, but they’re also well aware that, if he can stay healthy for the first part of the season, he could be one of their most valuable trade candidates.
This latest setback appears to be a minor one, for now.
“The good thing about it is it has nothing to do with his knee,” Billups said Friday after practice. “To me, when you haven’t played in so long and then you start pushing, you open yourself up to [hamstrings] and groins. It sucks, but it’s still positive.”
If there’s reason for optimism, it’s twofold.
The strain is being called grade 1, which is the least severe type of strain. The team’s Friday update said Williams is “expected to miss” two weeks, not that he will be “re-evaluated in two weeks” as these updates often do. That two-week timeline rules out the possibility of seeing Williams in action in any of the Blazers’ four preseason games. But if he doesn’t have any setbacks in that time, it’s possible he could be back in time for the season opener on Oct. 23 against Golden State.
The other positive, if you want to look at it this way, is that this injury is to his left hamstring, which isn’t the same leg as the knee he had surgery on 11 months ago, so it wasn’t a re-aggravation of the same injury. But these things are all interconnected—Williams had previously had surgery on his left knee earlier in his career, while he was still a member of the Celtics.
Williams was away from the Blazers for a few months after undergoing surgery last fall as he began the rehab process. But he rejoined the team around February, and worked with their medical staff in Las Vegas during Summer League. In the weeks leading up to training camp, he had been participating in five-on-five action at the Blazers’ practice facility and, from everyone I’d talked to about it, looking a lot like his pre-injury self.
“I’m in a great space right now,” Williams said Monday on media day. “Trying to stay on top of everything physically and mentally. It’s been a long seven months. A long fight back. But I’m just ready to get back on the court, man. You saw me smiling when I came in here. At one point, I couldn’t even walk, you feel what I’m saying? So I’m just ready to get back out there and show what I can do.”
The reality is that Williams’ body is something that’s going to have to be monitored and managed for the rest of his career. That was true before last fall’s knee surgery, when the Blazers were already holding him out on back-to-backs, and it’s especially true now.
“You kind of build that in, knowing it’s been as long as it’s been since he’s played,” Billups said Friday. “I’m just happy because he’s so focused. He’s always here. He never misses therapy. I’m happy with him. It sucks for him that he’s down for a little bit, but he’ll be fine.”
Williams’ absence, if it lingers into the season, could mean Donovan Clingan plays a bigger role at the beginning of his rookie season than expected. Since the start of camp, the Blazers have been telegraphing that their No. 7 overall pick’s first season will be focused on learning and acclimating his body to NBA conditioning. But if Williams is out, it will open up minutes for Clingan alongside Deandre Ayton and Duop Reath in the frontcourt.
Still, the absence of Williams for at least the rest of training camp puts a damper on the run-up to the season.
“We’re a unit,” Ayton said Friday after practice. “So it never feels like he’s left out. He’s always around us. When he’s not on the floor with us, he’s on the sideline talking to the younger guys, giving pointers out to coaches and stuff like that. So it doesn’t really feel like he’s left out. And then we’ve got another week or so for him to get back up and do his thing.”