Vogel's defense waits on Porziņģis, whose $30.7M salary bought 32 games last season
Kristaps Porziņģis will miss the start of training camp at BYU-Hawaii with what the team called a "health issue," Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy announced Sept. 28 at media day, with no timeline for his return. "He was in last week, doing well and everything," Dunleavy said. "I don't have a timeline on it; hopefully he will be back soon."
The descriptions since then do not quite line up. Reporter Anthony Slater described him as out indefinitely that day; a day later in Hawaii, Steve Kerr called him "day to day" and described his situation as a private health matter, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The nature of the issue has not been made public.
Dunleavy also urged patience: "Disappointed that he won't be out there tomorrow. But it's early, so don't want to overreact to anything." A camp absence is not a regular season, and nothing on the record says how long this one will last.
The timing lands on one coach in particular. The Warriors announced Frank Vogel's hiring as Kerr's associate head coach on Sept. 17, replacing Terry Stotts on the bench. Kerr has been plain about the role, per NBC Sports Bay Area: "I'm going to turn the defense over to him."
As Yardbarker lays out, Vogel has historically limited switching and kept his center near the rim in drop coverage, which lets guards and wings gamble at the point of attack because help is waiting behind them. Golden State has the perimeter half of that design: last season the Warriors tied for second in steals per game but ranked 26th in blocks. Porziņģis is the only 7-footer on the roster.
Yardbarker's history of Vogel's teams shows why availability carries this story. The 2014-15 Pacers lost Paul George for all but six games and still ranked seventh in defensive rating with Roy Hibbert in the middle. When Anthony Davis played 40 games for the 2021-22 Lakers, a defense that had ranked first a year earlier dropped to 21st.
That is a pattern across a handful of seasons, not a law, and plenty else changed on those rosters. But it explains why a big man's absence weighs more in this scheme than it might in another.
The Warriors acquired Porziņģis from the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 5 for Buddy Hield and Jonathan Kuminga, as ESPN's Shams Charania reported. In 15 games with Golden State he averaged 16.1 points and 1.1 blocks, per Yardbarker.
The larger number is the games. He played 42 in 2024-25 and has not played more than 65 in a season since 2016-17, Yardbarker reported, and last season he played 32 between Atlanta and Golden State.
That shapes what his salary bought. Per WAGE, about $18.7M of his $30.7M salary in 2025-26 went to games he did not play, a cost carried by two teams in a split the reporting does not detail.
Last season that salary ranked 55th of the 435 rated players, while his production ranked 209th.
His WAGE Score for 2025-26 was 13, in the Sunk Cost tier. It reflects a season of few games, and on its own it cannot separate how often he played from how well.
The money ahead is a separate question. Yardbarker reported that the Warriors signed him to a two-year, $40 million extension this summer; the season it begins, its guarantees and its structure are not in the reporting. Last season's score was earned on last season's salary and does not carry over to the new deal.
I'd argue the question the coming season puts to the Warriors' money in him is less what Porziņģis does on a given night than how many nights he is on the floor for Vogel.
That question carries extra weight because of who else is missing. Jimmy Butler, who tore his ACL on Jan. 19, and Moses Moody, recovering from a ruptured patellar tendon, are not expected back until around midseason, per Yardbarker, so the defense Kerr handed to Vogel waits on the one 7-footer on the roster.