Latest Kristaps Porzingis Update Could Derail Warriors' Season

Golden State Warriors center Kristaps Porzingis has had illness and injury issues over the last two seasons, and he may not be past them.

On the eve of training camp in Hawaii, Warriors GM Mike Dunleavy Jr. said Porzingis will not be traveling with the team due to a "health issue."

"I'm not marking him down as being out to start the season or anything like that," Dunleavy said. "He's just not available this week."

Porzingis signed a two-year, $40 million contract this offseason to be Golden State's starting center. The contract has just $3 million guaranteed for the 2027-28 season, so one could look at it like a one-year deal.

With Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody out for several months with knee injuries, the Warriors need Porzingis to be healthy.

Perhaps time will tell that this isn't a big deal, but many will be sounding the alarm bells based on his recent history.

Porzingis' Recent Injury/Illness History

Porzingis has played in just 74 games over the last two regular seasons. Many of the games he's missed have been due to an illness.

It was widely reported that he had POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) during the 2024-25 season.

It's not clear if the illness-related absences from last season were due to POTS.

Why Porzingis Missing Time Would Be Crushing

The Warriors had three players average at least 20 points per 36 minutes last season.

At the moment, only one of them (Stephen Curry) is healthy.

Porzingis and Butler are the two Warriors most capable of providing consistent secondary scoring for Curry. Without them healthy, the Dubs would surely get more scoring from a number of rotation players, including Brandin Podziemski and Al Horford, but the offense would probably falter over a lengthy sample size.

And it's never a good sign when a team's roster depth is being stress-tested before the season even starts.

The Warriors' frontcourt depth might be able to withstand a short Porzingis absence. Some combination of Horford, Draymond Green and Yaxel Lendeborg can play most of the minutes at the 4 and 5.

But a long-term Porzingis absence would make it so any injury to Horford, Green or Lendeborg would be devastating. And over-relying on Horford (40) and Green (36) would make it more likely that they get hurt.

The Warriors made a questionable gamble trading for Porzingis in the first place, and they doubled down on that gamble by re-signing him.

Their bet on him for the 2026-27 season is off to a bad start.

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