James Wiseman’s long, ‘emotional’ injury rehab journey — and where he
goes from here
Young center Wiseman seeks to kick-start NBA career after knee injury
held him out of Warriors' championship season
>STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 10: Golden State Warriors center James
Wiseman, who is assigned to the Santa Cruz Warriors, warms up before a G
League game against the Stockton Kings at the Stockton Arena in
Stockton, Calif., on Thursday, March 10, 2022. Wiseman played an
official game for the first time in 11 months after tearing the meniscus
in his right knee. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
>STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 10: Golden State Warriors center James
Wiseman, who is assigned to the Santa Cruz Warriors, warms up before a G
League game against the Stockton Kings at the Stockton Arena in
Stockton, Calif., on Thursday, March 10, 2022. Wiseman played an
official game for the first time in 11 months after tearing the meniscus
in his right knee. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
By MADELINE KENNEY | mkenney@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: August 15, 2022 at 5:45 a.m. | UPDATED: August 15, 2022 at
12:21 p.m.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/08/15/james-wisemans-long-emotional-injury-rehab-journey/

LAS VEGAS – James Wiseman, after just two NBA seasons, is in several
exclusive basketball clubs. He’s one of only five players the Warriors
have ever drafted with a top-two overall pick, and he’s now an NBA
champion at just 21 years old.

But he’s also part of another group: Players who have missed an entire
season due to injury, an undesirable distinction he earned last year due
to lingering problems with his troublesome right knee.

“It’s kind of like a members club — not one that you’re necessarily
dying to be in,” said Shaun Livingston, the Warriors’ director of player
affairs and engagement. “But it’s part of the game. Injuries are part of
the game, setbacks are part of life.”

Steph Curry dealt with lingering ankle issues throughout his early
career. Klay Thompson returned in January from a two-and-a-half-year
absence due to two major leg injuries. But few players miss as much time
as Wiseman has so early in his career.

Sixteen months after tearing the meniscus in his right knee, Wiseman is
back and perhaps more determined than ever to make a positive impact in
his return season with the Warriors.

“It actually lit some more fire inside of me,” Wiseman said of missing
last season. “It actually made [my love for the game] better in a good
way because I missed the game so much so it just made my ambition grow,
or get stronger.”

The Warriors still see Wiseman as a key piece of their young core, which
they hope will one day take the proverbial championship baton from the
superstar trio of Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green. But in the
present, he’s a major question mark as the team seeks to defend the
title it earned without him on the court.

Wiseman showcased some of his potential with the Warriors in four Summer
League games last month and 39 games as a rookie before the knee injury
shelved him for more than a season. He describes the long, lonely and
sometimes maddening rehabilitation process that included a second
procedure late last year as “very emotional.”

There were days when Wiseman wanted to throw in the towel. He found
himself getting upset as he watched his teammates – including youthful
contemporaries Jordan Poole, Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga – play in
meaningful games while he sat on the bench in street clothes.

>SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 13: Santa Cruz Warriors’ James
Wiseman (33) dribbles the ball against NBA G League Ignite in the third
quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, March
13, 2022. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)

“I’ve been through a lot of low moments,” he said. “Some days, I wasn’t
feeling it, some days I couldn’t work out because mentally I wasn’t
there but I just found ways to push through it every day… even when I
was going through my emotional breakdowns and stuff.

“It was hard for me and for my family as well, for my mom to see me down
and stuff, to see me in tears,” Wiseman continued. “But I just stayed
strong… I just kept going.”

Making music and journaling were two personal outlets for Wiseman during
his rehabilitation process. He uploaded a handful of hip-hop songs to
Soundcloud for public consumption around the beginning of the year, but
says the journaling is just for himself. He also relied on the support
of Livingston and Klay Thompson, both of whom know firsthand what
Wiseman was going through.

Livingston suffered one of the most infamous sports injuries of the 21st
century early in his career, tearing multiple knee ligaments landing
after a layup attempt. He rebuilt his game and was a major bench
contributor to the Warriors’ three championships last decade. Thompson
endured a second consecutive season-ending injury the day Wiseman was
drafted in November 2020 and wasn’t yet cleared for basketball
activities when Wiseman went down five months later.

Both understood the emotional and mental fortitude it took to overcome
an injury. But this was all new territory for Wiseman, who’d never
before experienced a major injury that kept him from playing basketball
for a significant time.

Wiseman’s resiliency was tested. But now, a year and a half later, he
said he feels as good as ever as he starts the next step in his process:
His pursuit of what Livingston called the “flow state.”

On the court, that means learning to fully trust his body again and find
the rhythm of his game. Off it, Wiseman will have to navigate the
battlefield of criticism that comes with being the highest draft pick in
decades for a franchise that’s made championship parades a routine affair.

>STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 10: Golden State Warriors center James
Wiseman (33), who is assigned to the Santa Cruz Warriors, makes a dunk
against the Stockton Kings in the second quarter of a G League game at
the Stockton Arena in Stockton, Calif., on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
Wiseman played an official game for the first time in 11 months after
tearing the meniscus in his right knee. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Unlike other points of Wiseman’s route back to health, there is no
timeline with this phase. His patience and perseverance will again be
challenged. He’ll have to lean on his teammates for support at times but
only he has control of how much that outside noise will affect him.

“On one hand, it is a lot of pressure, there are a lot of expectations
from himself and others,” Livingston said, “but on another hand, what a
position to be in. This is what he signed up for. Very capable, very
talented, the potential is there.”

If there’s anyone who can handle the pressure, two-way guard Lester
Quiñones believes it’s Wiseman, who was his roommate during their
freshman season together at the University of Memphis.

“He’s very strong-minded,” Quiñones said. “He’s been through so much
adversity as far as the media to where so many people doubted him… I
honestly feel like he’s one of the more talented guys in his draft class
but he hasn’t been healthy enough to show it.”

Concerns about Wiseman’s right knee appear to be behind him after Summer
League. He threw down a monstrous dunk in the opening possession of his
summer debut and felt like he was back.

“It just bodes well for the rest of summer,” assistant coach Jama
Mahlalela said. “He can now actually do development work and not do
rehab work, and that’s a fundamentally different thing for him.”

Wiseman’s outlook for the rest of the summer and next season is pretty
simple: “Have fun, play my role to the best of my ability, learn, grow,
develop, that’s really it. No pressure.”

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Though Wiseman boasts a unique offensive skill set that has yet to be
fully untapped, Mahlalela said his biggest contributions for the
Warriors next season will come on the other end of the floor.

“Without a question, James Wiseman’s No. 1 [contribution] for us next
season will be his defense,” Mahlalela said. “To rebound the ball
firstly and his ability to alter shots at the rim and be a good rim
protector, those are the two areas we’re really focusing in on and
that’s what’s going to get him on the floor for the Warriors.”

While other young players such as Poole, Moody and Kuminga seem ready
for bigger roles next season, how much Wiseman will play remains up in
the air. The Warriors re-signed iron man Kevon Looney to a three-year,
$25.5 million deal this month. His return will take some pressure off
Wiseman as he continues to adjust to the speed and physicality of the
NBA, though it complicates his path to a starting spot, which is surely
expected of players taken at No. 2 in the draft.