Kristaps Porzingis’ latest disappearance in Golden State is turning into exactly the kind of mess the Celtics hoped to avoid.
The Warriors reportedly don’t know where Porzingis is, what health issue he’s dealing with, or when he’ll be back on the floor. He has already missed two weeks of training camp and four preseason games, and there still isn’t any real sense of a timetable.
That’s a nasty development in a story that has been building for a while. By the end of his final season in Boston, Porzingis was already fighting through a mystery illness that may or may not have been POTS, and he was plainly not the same player in the 2025 playoffs.
Boston’s decision to move on from him, especially with a contract worth more than $30 million, wasn’t popular at the time. On the surface, it looked like a salary dump, and in one sense it was, since it helped push the Celtics under the luxury tax. But it also read like a front office acting on what it was seeing.
Now that judgment looks sharp. Porzingis struggled to stay on the court in Atlanta last season, which eventually led to him being shipped to the Warriors at the trade deadline. Golden State then had to extend him for two years and $40 million, despite the limited options it had while trying to keep the Stephen Curry era alive.
That contract looked shaky almost immediately.
Porzingis wasn’t available to the media all summer and still hasn’t joined the team, which makes the whole situation even more alarming. The biggest issue is clearly his health, but the lack of clarity around his absence only adds to the concern. It also reinforces a reality that has shadowed him for much of his career: the medical risk was always part of the package.
In hindsight, Brad Stevens managed to move Porzingis’ deal in a way that feels almost miraculous. Boston passed the problem along, and at the time it was easy to see the move mostly through the lens of finances. It’s harder now to miss how much more there was to it.
Porzingis has been a fun player to watch, a unicorn in every sense, and an important part of Banner 18 in Boston. Hopefully this isn’t the end of the road for him. But the Celtics’ choice to cut ties looks smarter by the day.
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