Last night, Brandon Williams lasted just 99 seconds before sustaining an injury that kept him out the rest of the game. This afternoon, following an MRI, we’ve learned that it’s a mild left hamstring strain that will keep him out for at least a week, which will be when he’s next evaluated by the Golden State Warriors medical staff. It’s a big blow for both the fifth-year vet and the team as this next 5-game stretch, already figuring to be the end of this historic winning streak at some point, could
be a real setback.
As Brady mentioned last night, Williams joins Jimmy Butler III, Moses Moody, and Gary Payton II among the actively injured with Will Richard out indefinitely and Kristaps Porziņģis all but retired. That’s 10 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists in 16 minutes a night that they’ll have to make up in the near-term. It’s not like solid backup point guards are easy to find, and the Dubs are already without a true center on top of all these injured forwards.
So, it gets harder.
Still, it’s worth wondering to what extent the team expected this. He had a bout of quad tightness a little over a week ago and was ruled out against the Suns; and as Anthony Slater noted earlier:
But left hamstring issues have followed Williams early in his NBA career. He strained it in the 2025 preseason while with Dallas and subsequently missed time last March while dealing with tightness.
The Warriors will need him back ASAP, but it’s also early enough in the season where there’s probably some incentive to let him take extra time to recover. All that to say that 7 days is probably the most optimistic recovery period. They’re one of the trickiest injuries to deal with and it’s probably easier to envision a far longer recovery period, especially since he had to come out of the game so suddenly.
So, the backup PG situation (non-Podziemski division) looks like this: De’Anthony Melton, Gui Santos, and LJ Cryer. Williams was a perfect change of pace. Like a shot of espresso off the bench. He provided such a jolt that that alone might be the hardest aspect of his game to reproduce in the aggregate.
