Dwayne Polee II, who collapsed at San Diego State once during a practice and dramatically during a 2014 game at Viejas Arena, had a similar episode last week with his team in the NBA’s D-league.
A spokesperson with the Long Island Nets confirmed that Polee “briefly lost consciousness on the bench during a timeout” of a Jan. 7 game against the Erie BayHawks. Doctors have not cleared him to play, and Polee has missed the team’s last two games.
The incident happened with 2:27 left in the fourth quarter of what would be a 108-90 Long Island victory. Polee had made a 3-pointer from the right corner on the previous possession and was walking to the Long Island bench for a media timeout. He stopped several times to put his hands on his knees, reached the bench, sat down, then slumped over.
Team personnel laid him across the chairs while players and coaches frantically called for a doctor. Polee regained consciousness in less than a minute and was helped by paramedics to the locker room.
The fourth quarter resumed after a three-minute delay. The game summary posted on D-League websites makes no mention of the incident, and it was not reported in mainstream media.
While at SDSU, Polee was diagnosed with a form of cardiac arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, that doctors told him was not life threatening. He received catheter ablations after both incidents during college, a procedure where an electrode is threaded through an artery in the groin to cauterize – or zap – the abnormal heart cells causing the electrical disturbance.
Polee first collapsed during a December 2013 practice and missed two games. He collapsed again on Dec. 22, 2014, against UC Riverside and wasn’t cleared to play for nearly two months, seeing six doctors, undergoing dozens of tests and signing a liability waiver.
At the time his father, Dwayne Polee Sr., said: “If it were up to me, I’m not sure I’d want him to play anymore. I’m praying before and after every game now. You just never know. I get texts from my friends. They’re divided on it. Some say: ‘Is the game that important to risk your son’s life?’ It’s a tough deal.”
Polee spent last season, his first out of college, with the D-League’s Reno Bighorns, playing just 91 minutes across 23 games. The Long Island Nets, the new affiliate of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, picked him in the D-League expansion draft last August, and he was averaging 5.7 points in 13.1 minutes in 22 games this season.
The Jan. 7 game at Erie was maybe his best of the season, with 11 points (3 of 3 behind the 3-point arc), four rebounds and two steals in 20 minutes of an 18-point road win.
“When we communicated with Dwayne,” SDSU coach Steve Fisher said Friday, “he was with the (Brooklyn) Nets’ doctors, which does give you a comfortable feeling. He’s getting high-level attention and treatment to make sure they don’t just dismiss it, that they check every box before he’d be allowed to go back out.
“I know what his mom and dad are going through. As a parent, you worry greatly about your son or daughter. We also want them happy, and Dwayne’s happiest when he’s playing basketball. But we want him here and healthy, and that’s what they’re concerned about. That’s what we’re all concerned about right now.”
Here is a link to video from the game (https://www.facebook.com/nbadleague/videos/10154675386830289/). The incident with Polee begins short after the 2:02 mark.
mark.zeigler@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutzeigler
