Warriors See Drastic Kristaps Porzingis Trade Swing After Huge Performance

There have been very few trades that were as immediately regrettable as the one the Warriors pulled off at the NBA trade deadline, when they sent out Jonathan Kuminga, the disgruntled 23-year-old, and brought back veteran big man Kristaps Porzingis, who has as much talent as nearly any player his size (7-foot-3) in the history of the league but whose nonstop nagging health issues make him almost unusable.

That’s what the Warriors found in their first month with Porzingis on the roster. He was still recovering from a calf injury when the Warriors acquired him, and they let him rest that off until the All-Star break. Then, he played one game after the break, and went back out with a mysterious illness.

Meanwhile, Kuminga’s first week back on the court in Atlanta was phenomenal. He averaged 21.3 points and 7.7 rebounds, on 66.7% shooting from the field in three games, and the Warriors looked very, very bad for swapping him for Kristaps DN-Porzingis.

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Kristaps Porzingis Has Biggest Game for Warriors

Ah, but things have shifted already. Sources within the Warriors organization had said there was no regret in dealing for Porzingis, because the team always knew he was going to be a gamble–great when he can play, but never quite sure when he might be healthy enough to play. He was healthy enough on Monday and faced off against one of his old teams, the Wizards.

Porzingis, who had 20 points in last Thursday’s loss to the Timberwolves, came off the bench and poured in 30 points on 8-for-13 shooting, making 13 of his 14 free throws, as the Warriors defeated the tanking Wizards on the road.

He added five rebounds and  four assists, to go with three blocks and two steals. It was an impressive all-around performance from Porzingis, certainly one of the best games he has played this season.

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Warriors Wary of Trusting Kristaps Porzingis

Now, to be sure, this is the dangerous thing with Porzingis, and the Warriors learned this right out of the gate: He is a very seductive talent, capable of big scoring nights that harken back to his youthful days as a star with the Knicks. But he’s likely to break your heart in the end, with an injury or a struggle at inopportune times.

At the same time, the Warriors’ hope on Porzingis was always that they’d catch lightning in a bottle, get him on a stretch in which he could stay healthy for a month-and-a-half and help carry the Warriors through the end of the season and into the playoffs as the ideal Stephen Curry complement.

Curry is not playing (knee) but we got a glimpse of how good Porzingis can be, if he stays upright.

 

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Jonathan Kuminga Struggling

As an aside in the Warriors’ favor in all this has been the play of Kuminga. After three games with the Hawks, he was looking like he was dead set on proving the Warriors wrong for trading him. And the Warriors emerged with egg on their faces for letting him go.

But increasingly, Kuminga is looking like the unreliable player the Warriors found him to be during his tenure in the Bay Area.

After those first three games, Kuminga has missed four of the subsequent five with a knee injury, and was 0-for-4 shooting with two points in the one game he did play.

Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney