Kristaps Porzingis will not play for the Golden State Warriors this season, and he may never play for them at all. On Friday, the 31-year-old center announced that he is stepping away from basketball to put his health first. He did not use the word retirement, and he did not give any date for a possible return.
“This season I was really looking forward to running it with this group, but as I ramped up, my body didn’t respond the way I anticipated,” Porzingis wrote in a statement posted to social media. “I’m doing good, but I know what it takes, and I’m not where I want to be to perform at the level that I expect from myself. At this point, I’ve made the decision to prioritize my health and step away from the game I love.” He added that he hopes to work with the Warriors to find “a solution that makes sense.”
A season that never started
The strange part is how normal this looked a few months ago. Golden State traded for Porzingis from the Atlanta Hawks at the February deadline, and he played 15 games for the Warriors last season. In June, the two sides agreed on a new two-year, $40 million contract, a deal that only makes sense if both sides believed he would play.
He never did. Porzingis missed all of training camp in late September, and general manager Mike Dunleavy told reporters at media day that he would miss the start of the preseason. He visited the team facility on October 13 for a check-in with Dunleavy and the medical staff, and said in a statement the next day that he was improving. The team later ruled him out indefinitely, listing him first with a “general illness” and then as “not with team.” He has not played a single minute this season.
The health question nobody has answered
Porzingis has been open about one diagnosis. In 2025, he disclosed that he had postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, known as POTS, a nervous system disorder that can affect heart rate and blood flow and can cause severe fatigue.
His statement on Friday did not mention POTS. Neither Porzingis nor the Warriors has confirmed that the problem keeping him away now is the same condition, and neither side has named any other diagnosis. What is on the record is limited: he says his body did not respond when he tried to ramp up, and the team says the matter is medical and private. Anything beyond that would be a guess, and his health is not something this story will guess about.
The money fight, explained in plain terms
Two days before Porzingis spoke, ESPN reported the other half of the story. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania and Anthony Slater, the Warriors have stopped the semimonthly payments on his $20 million salary for this season because the team ruled that he is not rendering the services his contract requires. Under the league’s rules, a failure to render services is docked at 1/91.6 of a player’s salary for each missed game. On a $20 million salary, ESPN’s Bobby Marks calculated, that comes to $218,341 per game.
Here is where each side stands, based on what has been reported. The Warriors, per ESPN, do not plan to void the contract, and his salary still counts against the salary cap while the checks are stopped. Keeping the contract alive also keeps it usable in a trade, and ESPN reported the team is still pursuing trade options ahead of the February 11 trade deadline. Porzingis, for his part, is not fighting the missed payments. ESPN reported that he is not actively disputing them, and that the players’ union is following his lead instead of filing a challenge. His public words point the same way: he wants a solution that makes sense, not a fight.
The structure of the deal gives Golden State an exit later, since only $3 million of his $20 million salary for next season is guaranteed. For now, the reported paths are a trade, possibly followed by a buyout, or a quiet wait. On Saturday, ClutchPoints reported that his locker at the team facility had been cleared out, nameplate and all.
So a former All-Star who helped Boston win the 2024 title is away from the game with his pay withheld, and Golden State is carrying a $20 million question it cannot answer on the court. Follow the rest of the NBA season in our Sports coverage.
Sources: USA Today; ESPN reporting by Shams Charania, Anthony Slater and Bobby Marks, via TSN and Hoops Rumors; NBC Sports Bay Area; Philstar; San Francisco Chronicle via Heavy; ClutchPoints via Athlon Sports.