Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr issued a mea culpa on Saturday, after appearing to question one of his newest players’ medical issues.
The Warriors acquired center Kristaps Porzingis from the Atlanta Hawks at the NBA trade deadline, only a few months after the 7-footer revealed he dealt with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) while playing for the Boston Celtics in last year’s playoffs. POTS is a non-life-threatening blood circulation disorder in which a number of symptoms can emerge when the subject stands up.
Porzingis has now missed three straight games due to “illness,” leading to Kerr being asked about the POTS issue during an appearance on 95.7 The Game on Friday. His answer, via the San Francisco Chronicle:
“When I heard about the trade, I read about the POTS diagnosis and I called Onsi … and said, ‘Is this POTS story real?’ And he said, ‘It’s actually not POTS.’ That was some misinformation that was out there. I don’t know if anybody’s asked him about it. Bottom line is, whatever was bothering him in Atlanta that was keeping him out had nothing to do with the illness (this) week. He was just sick. … He was sick enough where he was losing a lot of fluid and contagious so we just kept him home and he’s doing a lot better now.”
A day later, Kerr acknowledged he made an error while speaking with reporters before Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers:
“It was a stupid mistake by me to talk about something that I’m not qualified to talk about. I regretted even trying to discuss the diagnosis. That was my mistake. I need to leave that to professionals.”
When asked for details about what Porzingis is dealing with, Kerr said “It’s a medical issue way behind my capabilities of explaining anything. He’s sick, he won’t play, we’ll keep monitoring.”
Porzingis has been a member of the Warriors for more than three weeks now, but has only played one game for them. He was dealing with an Achilles injury at the time of his trade, delaying his Golden State debut to Feb. 19. and he missed the three games after that with the illness.
He was again out on Saturday, though he did practice on Friday. Kerr indicated an appearance in Monday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers is a possibility.
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