Warriors Reportedly Explore Porzingis Trades as He Weighs His Future

The Warriors have a starting center they cannot put on a timetable, with a diagnosis they will not confirm. Golden State said on October 12 that it did not know where Kristaps Porzingis was, what he was dealing with health-wise, or when he might return to the court, Danny Emerman of the San Francisco Standard reported. Two days later the picture moved: Porzingis came back to the facility, met the general manager and the club’s lead medical decision-maker, and spoke publicly for the first time. He is still out indefinitely, and the update sections below record what changed.

Update, October 21: ESPN reports the Warriors have started exploring trades for Porzingis, who is seriously contemplating his future in basketball, and the club says it no longer anticipates him around the team in the immediate future. That section is added below.

Update, October 23: Curry spoke after Wednesday’s 127-105 season-opening loss to the Lakers, calling the absence a hard one on a personal and team level. That section is added below.

What have the Warriors actually said about Porzingis?

Less than a team usually knows about its own player. Emerman’s reporting, carried by the New York Post, is that the club cannot state his whereabouts, the nature of his current health issue, or any return date. Steve Kerr filled in the human outline last week: Porzingis was not at Friday’s practice, the two have texted, he seems to be doing okay, and the team has not got into depth about it, because his job is to take care of his health and the club will support that. That is a coach describing contact without information, which is a different thing from a holdout or a disappearance, and the distinction is the story. A team that had shut a player down would say so. This team is describing a gap it cannot close.

What is confirmed about the absence, and what is not?

The confirmed list is short and entirely procedural. General manager Mike Dunleavy announced at media day in late September that Porzingis would be out indefinitely with a health issue, NBC Sports reported at the time. He did not travel to Hawaii for training camp, has taken no part in camp, and has missed all four preseason games, Pro Football Network reports. The unconfirmed list is everything medical. Porzingis was diagnosed in 2025 with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a disorder of heart-rate and blood-pressure regulation that can bring exhaustion and dizziness. The New York Post reports the belief is that the absence is a byproduct of his health, and states plainly that the organisation has not confirmed that. No cause has been announced. Porzingis had not commented publicly at that point; he did so on October 14, in the update below.

Why did Golden State give him $40 million anyway?

Because the front office made the bet with its eyes open and said so at the time. Dunleavy explained in August that in constructing the roster the club had to choose between talent and availability, and leaned toward talent while hoping for better luck, Pro Football Network reports. The availability record was never hidden: 57, 42 and 32 games across the last three seasons, and only 15 games for Golden State after his February trade from Atlanta, in which he averaged 16.1 points and 5.3 rebounds, NBC Sports reports. The contract carries some protection: reporting on the deal says only $24 million of the $40 million is guaranteed, OpenCourt Basketball reports. The bet made sense in a specific way. Kerr wants to play five-out basketball, and a healthy Porzingis is the piece that makes it work, in a preseason that has already given the Warriors a rookie-scale audition story in Dalen Terry’s 43-minute night at the other end of the pay scale. The same Warriors preseason has also produced a mentoring story at the other end of the experience scale, with Draymond Green revealing the warning he gave Kings rookie Darius Acuff Jr. about possessions in which nobody else touches the ball.

How does the information gap change the basketball picture?

It turns a medical story into a planning story. The Warriors open the regular season on October 21, Heavy notes, and they are planning the rotation without knowing whether their starting center is days away or months away. Every other absence on the roster has a file and a date. This one has a text thread. It also sits oddly against the league’s wider argument this month about player information, in which NBA players fear their own wearable data being used against them in contract talks: the players’ anxiety is that teams will know too much, and Golden State’s problem is that, on the record, it knows almost nothing about the player it just paid. Around the league the preseason has run on the usual mix of rest and caution, from Jaylen Brown watching his Boston return from the locker room to the rim Naji Marshall broke in Macao. None of those teams had to answer the question Golden State is being asked.

What did the Warriors’ statement change? (Update, October 14)

Update, October 14: both the club and the player have now spoken, and the absence has a shape it did not have on Monday. While the team was in Las Vegas for a preseason game on Tuesday night, Porzingis returned to the Warriors’ San Francisco practice facility and met general manager Mike Dunleavy and Rick Celebrini, the club’s vice president of player health and performance, ESPN reports. In a statement on Wednesday, the Warriors said the specific contents of that meeting will remain private, that Porzingis will remain out indefinitely due to the same health-related matter, and that he will be around the team while it finishes the preseason. An update on any resumption of practice, playing status or timeline will come when available and appropriate. He is not yet cleared to practice.

Porzingis added his own words the same day, his first public comments since media day. He said he is working with doctors and experts to be fully back to good health as soon as possible, that he is honestly getting better and better, and that he has to stay patient, USA Today reports. He described the frustration of health problems that cannot be pinpointed exactly, on top of the injuries across his career, and he answered the speculation directly, thanking the internet doctors for trying to diagnose him, saying he is in the best hands, and stating that he does not have HIV or AIDS. The where question this page opened with is answered: he is back around the team. The when question is not, and Kerr is planning accordingly, leaning toward a smaller starting lineup of Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Gui Santos, Yaxel Lendeborg and Draymond Green, ESPN reports. That smaller group would put real minutes on Lendeborg in his first week, the same rookie who admitted he was spooked when he was told he would guard Luka Doncic in the preseason, before Doncic was rested and the assignment disappeared.

What is the latest on Porzingis before the opener? (Update, October 19)

Update, October 19: the opener has arrived and the answer has not changed. Monday’s reporting confirms Porzingis remains out indefinitely with the same private health issue and will not travel to Los Angeles with the team for Wednesday’s season opener, TSN reports. The where question this page opened with stays answered, since he has been back around the team since October 14. The when question is exactly where it was: no practice clearance, no timeline, and a smaller starting lineup planned without him. The availability drama of the Warriors’ final practice days moved to a different ankle instead, as Stephen Curry limped out of Sunday’s open practice, then practiced in full on Monday and is expected to play on Wednesday. Porzingis is now the only Golden State absence with no date attached to it at all.

What changed on Wednesday? (Update, October 21)

Two things, and they point the same way. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Golden State has started exploring trade routes for Porzingis, who is seriously contemplating his future in basketball while he deals with recurring symptoms of POTS, the condition he first disclosed last year, NBC Sports reports. Later the same day the Warriors put out a statement of their own. The club said it will not comment on trade speculation or on reports about his health or his future, and added that it is not anticipating Porzingis being around the team in the immediate future, Larry Brown Sports reports.

Set that against where this page stood a week ago. On October 14 the same club said he had come back to the facility, met the general manager and the lead medical decision-maker, and would be around the team while he stayed out indefinitely. That line is no longer the club’s position, and the TL;DR at the top of this page has been corrected to say so. Nothing about his health status has been announced as changed. He is still out indefinitely, he did not travel to Los Angeles for Wednesday’s opener against the Lakers, and the ankle question around Stephen Curry was the only Warriors availability story the club was willing to discuss in normal terms this week.

No decision about his career has been reported, and this page does not upgrade one into existence. Charania’s reporting is that he is contemplating his future and that stepping away permanently is a possibility if there is no breakthrough in his recovery. Contemplating is the word the reporting supports. Porzingis himself, on October 14, said he is working with doctors and getting better, and asked for patience. Both things can be true in the same week: a player working on a recovery and also weighing whether the recovery is going to come.

The trade mechanics explain why a club can shop a player who is not playing. He is owed 20 million dollars this season and only 3 million of next season’s 20 million is guaranteed, so for trade purposes the deal behaves like an expiring contract, NBC Sports and RealGM report. That corrects the figure this page carried earlier in the week, when reporting on the deal put the guaranteed total at 24 million dollars; on the October 21 figures it is 23 million. NBC Sports reports the Warriors could package the contract with players or picks to bring back a player of value, and that a team acquiring him would most likely waive him next summer and take the savings plus whatever assets Golden State attached. Exploring trades for Porzingis, in his current state, is mostly exploring trades for his contract. Kerr, in remarks carried by Heavy, put the club’s first order of business as supporting him and helping him through this. Read alongside the trade reporting, that is the human position and the business position running in parallel, which is uncomfortable and also exactly what the two Wednesday documents say.

What did Curry say after the opener? (Update, October 23)

The basketball question arrived on schedule, and so did the first on-record answer from the locker room. Golden State lost its opener 127-105 to the Lakers in Los Angeles on Wednesday, and Curry addressed Porzingis’s absence afterward, the New York Post and NBC Sports Bay Area report. “It’s a hard one for all reasons,” he said. “For him personally, first and foremost, but us as a team knowing you have an idea of who you are coming into a season.” The availability point followed: “We always say availability is a big factor for our team with the guys we already have out. It’s no secret that spot was an important one for us, especially with his skill set.”

NBC Sports Bay Area adds the context that made the absence visible on the floor. Los Angeles scored 66 points in the paint and shot 57 percent, with Lakers center Walker Kessler scoring 26 points on 12-of-12 shooting, 10 of them dunks. Curry kept the framing on both tracks: “It’s hard to talk about it without even the humanity of it in mind, but it is a tough one to figure out for now, and for the future. You had a good look of what we were supposed to be as a team. We have to overcome that, obviously. We would love to have him here.”

Draymond Green was blunter. Asked about the situation, the New York Post reports him answering: “Yeah definitely, but shit happens. You go out there and play.” The Warriors’ home opener is Friday against Memphis.

What happens next for Porzingis and the Warriors?

A practice clearance, or a longer absence that the club will have to keep explaining. The reporting that spread on Monday drew a sharp reaction from the fanbase, Pro Football Network reports, and the pressure on the club to say something firmer grew with every preseason day he missed; Wednesday’s statement and the player’s own posts are the answer to that pressure, even if they contain no date. Kerr’s position, that health comes first and the team will support him, can hold for as long as the regular season has not started. The opener made it a basketball question as well as a human one: a 127-105 loss in Los Angeles in which the rim protection Porzingis was signed to provide was the most visible absence, and Curry and Green both said it out loud. The confirmed facts have changed since Monday: the club now knows where he is and has met him face to face, and the player says he is improving. What it still cannot say is when he will play. The Warriors’ home opener then produced a different controversy, as Steve Kerr blasted flopping after a waved-off Curry three sealed the collapse against Memphis. Porzingis’s problem is medical rather than administrative, which is more than Oklahoma City can say this week: its rookie centre Aday Mara is fit, in camp and producing, and still spent Friday inside a clearance dispute with Zaragoza over whether he needs the Spanish club’s permission to play at all.