The Warriors Reportedly Have No Idea Where Kristaps Porzingis Is, What's Going On With His Health, Or When He'll Be Able To Play Again

Eakin Howard. Getty Images.

As we prepare for the start of a new NBA season in just 8 days, one of the more bizarre storylines across the league right now is whatever the hell is currently going on with the Warriors and Kristaps Porzingis. After acquiring him last year from the Hawks, KP played just 15 games as a Warrior in 2025-26, and then rewarded him with a 2/$40M extension this offseason. All of the reporting was that he had fully recovered from his mystery illness and was ready for a fully healthy season in the Bay.

Well, since that happened, it's been the exact opposite. Apparently, KP's mystery illness was not resolved, and the team legit has no idea where he is, what his health status is, or when he'll even play again. The whole thing is pretty bizarre

First and foremost, I hope everything is OK. This whole situation seems pretty scary considering this is something that dates back to the Spring of 2025. I will never forget how I watched KP go into MSG in early April 2025 and drop a dominant 34 points

only to be a complete shell of himself just a few weeks later against the Magic in Round 1, and then be legit unplayable against the Knicks in Round 2 where he couldn't even make a layup. It was like a real like Monstars situation where all of his basketball ability had been stolen, and the only thing we heard about that time was that there was this "mystery illness". Nobody could figure it out or what was going on for there to be such a drastic turn in just a few weeks' time. Later on, it was reported that he was dealing with POTS, which sounds terrible. Then it was reported that he had recovered, yet he only played 17 games for the Hawks before the trade to GS, and now here we are back at square one again.

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My question is, do NBA teams not have physicals? Did the Hawks or Warriors just not care? Before his extension, after having dealt with his illness issues during the year, the Warriors had no problem extending him for 2/$40M without figuring out what was going on or if things had been resolved? How does that make any sense?  Now here they are, only a few months after that deal, he's already back to dealing with this same issue, and no one has any idea what's going on or where he is? Sorry, but I'm not sure that passes the smell test. It actually sounds pretty scary if you ask me. 

In terms of what this means for the Warriors from a basketball perspective, it's certainly not nothing. KP is their starting center. You can't keep asking old as hell (but still productive) Al Horford to continue to carry the load there, you'll kill him. Outside of those two, only Charles Bassey is on the roster to fill that center spot. Draymond I guess could play some small ball five, but he's getting up there in age as well. I don't care how special Steph Curry is, you're going to get destroyed with that type of center rotation, and considering KP was one of their big "offseason moves", you can see why this is a bit of an issue. That's also why it's so confusing as to why they paid that price for a guy they weren't totally sure would be around and healthy enough to play. I feel like there's more to the story there.

The whole thing is weird. The reporting, the contract, the mystery illness, how the Warriors are talking about it, all of it. I just hope at the end of the day KP is OK, because it's starting to sound like a pretty serious issue that could impact his life well beyond basketball.