Our savvy commenters sussed out the mystery ailment that has been sapping Kristaps Porziņģis of his time to play professional basketball career as being POTS, which has been reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania in this news-filled post to X less than an hour ago:
Golden State has started exploring trade routes for Kristaps Porzingis, who is now seriously contemplating his future in basketball as he deals with recurring symptoms from the autoimmune condition termed as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia
syndrome), sources tell ESPN.
Anthony Slater’s reporting offers more and sadder details:
After missing the first two weeks of training camp and the entire preseason, Porzingis drove up from Los Angeles to San Francisco last Tuesday, league sources said, to meet with Dunleavy and Rick Celebrini, the franchise’s lead medical decision-maker.
In the aftermath, the team announced that they would keep the details of the meeting private, but expressed an expectation that Porzingis would remain around the team as he tried to improve his health and eventually resume his career.
But that hasn’t been the case. Porzingis hasn’t returned to the facility, league sources said, beginning another indefinite leave of absence where he is mostly maintaining contact with only Dunleavy and Celebrini.
Well. This is bummer news. POTS has been a recognized symptom of “long COVID,” and the federal government has recently decided to scale back research and funding for developing effective treatments for it — so Porziņģis is not alone in his search for answers or even just a solution to his lingering ailment. He just happens to work in a high profile career where he’s not seen as a human being so much as a buckets delivery system.
It sounds more and more like this is a person reaching his wits end with a near-unsolvable issue and the tens of millions of dollars at stake only adds to the pressure. His health and his life is most important, of course, so you can see why the leaves of absence are necessary. A bad situation for him.
But this doesn’t seem to meaningfully alter the Warriors’ plans. They seemed to have signed him to his 2-year extension with a situation like this firmly in mind. This morning at the San Francisco Standard, Danny Emerman reported on Golden State’s cap situation and how their expiring deals and picks have them setup to make a splashy in-season trade. So, on the one hand, losing a projected starter before the season even begins isn’t optimal, but on the other hand, it’s not a massive hit to their plans. Y’know… if Yaxel Lendeborg is as big as Draymond Green projects.
In the meantime, before we delve into trade speculation, here’s hoping that Kristaps Porziņģis can find some measure of relief soon. It is a lifelong ailment that can, effectively, be only managed, and even then, not always in a way that makes life comfortable.
