Golden State Warriors big man Kristaps Porzingis will miss the team’s one-week training camp in Hawaii with what general manager Mike Dunleavy described as a “health issue.”
Speaking to reporters at the team’s media day on Monday, Dunleavy said Porzingis is out “indefinitely.” The team found out about the unspecified issue on Sunday, one day before the season-opening event, and Dunleavy said Porzingis had been working out without any problems prior to Sunday.
“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, 31, has missed significant portions of the last two seasons with a medical condition that Porzingis himself has said is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), though there has been some disagreement on that front. POTS is a neurological condition that is “like the extreme version of standing up and feeling lightheaded, and that doesn’t go away,” Dr. Nirav Pandya told SFGATE in February.
Dunleavy was asked whether this absence is related to POTS, but he declined to specify: “I want to give you as much information as I can always. It’s a health thing that I really can’t comment on.”
When the Warriors traded Jonathan Kuminga for the 7-foot-2 center last year, he only played in one of the first 11 games he was on the Warriors’ roster. It even put Steve Kerr in a bit of hot water, after he first claimed the POTS diagnosis was “misinformation” before he apologized for saying that and called his own quote as a “stupid mistake.” Still, Kerr referred to Porzingis’ condition as “a little mysterious” when he was missing games last year.
Porzingis did end up playing in 14 games for the Dubs over the final five weeks of the regular season. And in the first play-in game against the Clippers, Porzingis scored 20 points in nearly 28 minutes while adding five rebounds, five assists and two blocks. Those strong performances were enough for the Dubs to decide to bring the then-pending free agent back on a two-year, $40 million deal.
The Warriors roster has barely changed since the team finished 10th in the West last season, and they anticipate missing Jimmy Butler (torn ACL) and Moses Moody (torn patellar tendon) for a significant chunk of time. Any added injury concerns will only lead to more questions about how Golden State expects to contend for a playoff spot this year.
This breaking news story will be updated.