The Golden State Warriors have won two in a row to make them 2-3 on the season, and are doing it without their top trade acquisition from last season.
Kristaps Porzingis.
Porzingis has been missing in action from the Warriors facility, and it will remain that way until his health improves.
When head coach Steve Kerr said he found out about Porzingis being out indefinitely, he told 95.7 The Game’s Dylan Grausz, that the news caught them “off-guard.”
“We were in communication with him over the summer, and it seemed like everything was in a good place right up until training camp,” Kerr said to Grausz.
“Obviously things went south. Since the start of camp, when he was not here and we had to move forward, I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought to be honest, because we’re busy. We have to take every single day and get our team ready for the next game.”
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Kerr told Grausz that despite the Warriors being in the full swing of the early NBA season, he will occasionally check in with Porzingis to see how he’s doing, but is committed to working with the guys who are already with the team.
“I like our young bigs, Graham [Ike] and Charles [Bassey],” Kerr said. “We’re excited about playing those guys, and the opportunity that they’re going to receive, but everything else is not my jurisdiction. That’s Mike’s [Dunleavy] and the front office’s, and I just come to practice, and I look forward to coaching the guys every day. We’re competing and seeing what we can put together.”
Before the season began, Kerr said that due to Porzingis’ underlying health issues, he wasn’t planning on having him travel with the team, because he wanted to give him his space and focus on the rest of the guys.
When Golden State traded for Porzingis last season by sending Jonathan Kuminga to the Atlanta Hawks, he gave the Warriors a jolt, averaging 16.1 points and 5.3 rebounds through 15 games.
During the offseason, the Warriors gave Porzingis a two-year, $40 million contract extension to help be a building piece towards helping Steph Curry win his fifth NBA title.
