{"id":178344,"date":"2025-09-29T20:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T20:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/178344\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T20:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T20:19:10","slug":"porzingis-is-recovered-from-mystery-illness-for-1st-season-with-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/178344\/","title":{"rendered":"Porzingis is recovered from mystery illness for 1st season with Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Kristaps Porzingis still can\u2019t explain the mystery illness that kept sapping his strength<\/a> during his 2024-25 season with the Boston Celtics. <\/p>\n

Porzingis is just glad he\u2019s now fully healthy as he prepares to enter his first season with the Atlanta Hawks, who have relied too heavily on Trae Young\u2019s scoring and assists in recent seasons.<\/p>\n

Porzingis said his participation in the EuroBasket tournament this summer showed him he has fully recovered from the persistent illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still don\u2019t have an exact answer,\u201d Porzingis said Monday when asked about the illness at the Hawks\u2019 media day. \u201cIt was lingering. That was the toughest part. Some days it was OK. I\u2019m glad it\u2019s gone now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Porzingis said his confidence in his health was restored while playing for the Latvian national team this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the gas tank again,\u201d Porzingis said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any crashes. … I\u2019m excited I\u2019m coming into the season healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks acquired Porzingis as past of a three-team trade<\/a> with Boston and Brooklyn on June 24.<\/p>\n

The Hawks also added defensive standout Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Luke Kennard in a productive offseason as they look to end a four-year run of settling for the play-in tournament. <\/p>\n

The 7-foot-2 Porzingis, who has averaged 19.6 points in nine NBA seasons, is a big reason Atlanta is widely projected to move up in the East. The center has made 36.6% of his 3-point shots in his career, which should open space for Young\u2019s shots and passes.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery great team has people that step up when the moment calls,\u201d Porzingis said. \u201cI think this team has the talent, a lot of good young guys. Trae already has good experience and now myself coming into this young group, I think I can just elevate all these young guys and bring even more, like gunpowder, to this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young was last season\u2019s NBA assists leader and led Atlanta with 24.2 points per game. Young now has more help, especially with power forward Jalen Johnson<\/a> back from a season-ending shoulder injury that required surgery. <\/p>\n

Johnson averaged 18.9 points, 10 rebounds and five assists as Young\u2019s top scoring complement and now joins Onyeka Okongwu, Porzingis and Zaccharie Risacher,<\/a> the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA draft and runner-up in the Rookie of the Year voting, as the top front-line options. <\/p>\n

Young and Dyson Daniels<\/a>, voted the NBA\u2019s Most Improved Player last season and the runner-up as top defensive player, return as the starting guards.<\/p>\n

There were many questions about heightened expectations on Monday. Coach Quin Snyder and others asked for patience as the new group becomes comfortable with his scheme and their new roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be patient and understand this is a slow burn,\u201d Snyder said before adding \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t be urgent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly no one will be satisfied with another play-in tournament berth. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were healthy we could compete with anybody, especially in the East,\u201d Young said of last season\u2019s team. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of teams that can say that every year, so hopefully we have that luck factor this year and if we do I\u2019m very confident in our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young is entering the final year of a five-year contract he signed in 2021. He has a player option for the 2026-27 season. Asked if he\u2019d like to already have an extension entering this season, Young said \u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t stressed,\u201d Young said. \u201cIf something happened, it happened. If it didn\u2019t, it didn\u2019t. I\u2019m focused on this team right now. … Who knows what the future has for me, but right now I\u2019m here in the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Kristaps Porzingis still can\u2019t explain the mystery illness that kept sapping his strength during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[7218,64,63,12840,6779,6782,12836,12833,12843,590,31647,12846,115194,115193,85,12830,12844],"class_list":{"0":"post-178344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-dyson-daniels","12":"tag-ga-state-wire","13":"tag-georgia","14":"tag-jalen-johnson","15":"tag-kristaps-porzingis","16":"tag-luke-kennard","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nba-basketball","19":"tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","20":"tag-onyeka-okongwu","21":"tag-quin-snyder","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-trae-young","24":"tag-zaccharie-risacher"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}