Steve Kerr reveals stunning revelation about Kristaps Porzingis illness

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Steve Kerr reveals stunning revelation about Kristaps Porzingis illness

Brian Robb · MassLive

Sat, Feb 28, 2026 ·

3 min read

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Warriors coach Steve Kerr added a new chapter to the mystery surrounding the illnesses impacting big man Kristaps Porzingis in a radio interview on Friday. The former Celtics big man told The Athletic before the season that he was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, which caused him to miss significant time with the Celtics last season.

Porzingis only played 17 games this year with the Hawks due to illness and injury before the Warriors acquired the big man at the trade deadline in exchange for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield . The center has missed three straight games for the Warriors since debuting with the team last week but Kerr revealed a new detail about Porzingis’ condition this season. The Warriors coach spoke with 95.7 The Game on Friday when talking about the big man’s situation.

“When I heard about the trade, I read about the POTS diagnosis and called the Hawks GM Onsi Saleh. He’s a good friend of mine and I said is this POTS story real?” Kerr said. “He said it’s actually not POTS. That was some misinformation that was out there. I don’t know if anyone has asked him about it. The bottom line is whatever was bothering him in Atlanta that was keeping him out had nothing to do with the illness last week. He was just sick, there’s a lot going around as you guys know. He was sick enough where he was losing a lot of fluids and contagious so we kept him home but he’s doing a lot better now.”

Porzingis played his first game with the Warriors on Feb. 19, and posted 11 points in 17 minutes in a blowout defeat. He has missed three straight games for Golden State since that matchup but was upgraded to questionable for Saturday’s game against the Lakers .

“I don’t really know what’s out there,” Kerr said. “I just know that we had internal discussions and I’ve talked to Kristaps. He told me he’s feeling good. We haven’t gone into depth with his illness stuff in Atlanta but I got confirmation it was not POTS but it was something else that was really difficult to figure out. It’s some kind of case even in this modern age where we have a lot of answers, we never have all of them. Sometimes there’s really just mysterious stuff.”

Porzingis has only appeared in 18 games this season between the Warriors and Hawks. Boston traded him in a three-team deal back in July to Atlanta to take his $30 million salary off the books. He’s set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.

The Celtics will face Porzingis one more time this season when Golden State comes to TD Garden on Mar. 18.

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