Warriors Notes: Curry, Green, Porzingis, Kawhi, Moody
The Warriors entered Thursday’s game in Houston having gone 23-16 with Stephen Curry available and just 8-14 in games he has missed. However, the shorthanded club, playing without Curry for a 12th straight game due to his knee injury, pulled out a surprising overtime win over the Rockets, as ESPN’s Anthony Slater writes, after the two-time MVP texted Draymond Green some words of encouragement before the game.
“Keep going,” Curry told his teammate, according to Green. “I know it’s tough, but promise you, I’m coming back.”
Head coach Steve Kerr referred to it as the “best game of the season” for Brandin Podziemski, who scored a team-high 26 points and grabbed five offensive rebounds in 40 minutes of action, and said Golden State got a “vintage” performance from Green. Two-way player LJ Cryer, who had played eight total minutes in three games and had been out for several weeks due to a hamstring injury, also came up big with 12 points in 20 minutes off the bench, Nick Friedell of The Athletic notes.
While Curry’s return still isn’t imminent and there’s no specific timeline for when he’ll be back, Green said he knows the star guard is doing everything he can to play again in the coming weeks.
“My confidence level is high, ultimately, because I know (Curry)’s going to put in all the work and do everything he can to get back,” Green said. “If his body allows him to get back, I know he will come back. He’s not wanting to just shut it down. For us, just got to stay afloat. Nobody’s expecting us to go on a 10-game win streak, but you just got to stay afloat. Tonight’s a big step towards that.”
We have more on the Warriors:
- Kristaps Porzingis has been able to do more on the court in recent days and the Warriors are hopeful that will trend will continue, Friedell writes for The Athletic. Porzingis is on Golden State’s three-game road trip and told The Athletic he’s feeling better after missing the last six games due to an illness, but Kerr was noncommittal on a timeline for the big man. “He’s gonna get a workout today, and we’ll just take it day by day from there,” Kerr said. ESPN’s Slater and Ramona Shelburne took a more in-depth look at the “mysterious” illness that has affected Porzingis over the past year and limited him to one appearance since the Warriors acquired him from Atlanta last month.
- Within that story on Porzingis, Slater and Shelburne cite league sources who say the Warriors were among the teams to inquire on Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard prior to last month’s deadline. Leonard ultimately stayed in Los Angeles even though L.A. traded James Harden and Ivica Zubac.
- Fifth-year Warriors wing Moses Moody sat out on Thursday due to a right wrist sprain, but he shouldn’t require an extended absence. Kerr referred to Moody last night as day-to-day, tweets Slater.
- During a radio appearance this week on 95.7 The Game, Kerr responded to criticism about the way the Warriors have developed young players in recent years, as Florito Maniego of NBC Sports Bay Area relays. “I think we’ve really addressed that over the last four or five years,” Kerr said. “We felt like there were some improvements we could make, and we changed some things organizationally. We brought in a couple of people to put them in charge of player development. I think we’ve done a pretty good job with that over the last few years. … I think part of the frustration of our fans probably stems from the fact that we have the three lottery picks coming at a time when we were winning a championship. And it’s just hard to play 19-year-olds on championship teams. The development that comes is going to be different than it would come on a team that’s in the lottery, where you just put a guy out there for 35 minutes and let him make his mistakes.”
NBA Explores Launching Streaming RSN Hub For 2026/27
The NBA has let its teams know that there’s a chance it will introduce a streaming hub for local broadcasts as soon as next season, sources tell Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal. Many clubs’ local broadcasts have been thrown into disarray due to the fact that Main Street Sports Group, which has regional TV agreements with 13 NBA teams, is likely headed for insolvency.
That group of 13 teams – which includes the defending champion Thunder, along with the Spurs, Pistons, Cavaliers, Clippers, Heat, Timberwolves, Magic, Hornets, Hawks, Pacers, Grizzlies, and Bucks – would be the most likely candidates to be involved in the NBA’s new streaming hub.
As Friend points out, there are a few more teams (the Suns, Jazz, Trail Blazers, Mavericks, and Pelicans) who have already abandoned their respective regional sports networks and could be candidates for the new venture as well. On top of that, Friend’s sources suspect the four teams who have deals with NBC Sports – the Celtics, Warriors, Sixers, and Kings – could be in play due to a sense that NBC may want out of the regional sports network business.
The other eight teams broadcast games on their own networks, which doesn’t necessarily rule them out, but would make it more complicated for the league to negotiate deals with each of them.
While it remains unclear exactly what the new setup will look like, Friend hears that the NBA has engaged in talks with potential partners like YouTube TV, DAZN, Amazon, and ESPN as it considers a package that might resemble NFL Sunday Ticket.
The total number of teams that opt in figures to be a major factor in determining the viability of this new streaming hub, Friend writes, citing sources who think the NBA would need to guarantee a broadcast partner a certain threshold of clubs in order to secure a significant deal. With enough teams involved, industry insiders believe an agreement would be worth billions, Friend adds.
Due to its financial woes, Main Street has missed payments to its teams on January 1, February 1, and March 1, per Sports Business Journal. The NBA originally didn’t plan on launching this sort of streaming hub until down the road, Friend writes, but it has become a higher priority in order to help teams make up for those lost rights-fee payments.
Although the league has informed its teams that it’s trying to get something together for the 2026/27 season, there’s no guarantee that will happen, so Main Street clubs have been advised to explore lining up a bridge deal for their local broadcasts. Those teams are exploring both linear and streaming options, Friend notes.
Friend also points out that, since a new league-wide streaming hub may overlap with League Pass, the NBA may need to either restructure League Pass or eliminate it all together down the road. Amazon currently distributes League Pass as part of its national broadcast agreement with the NBA, so those negotiations would be simpler if the league ultimately strikes a deal to make Amazon its partner on a new streaming RSN.
Checking In On 10-Days, Pending Deals, Open Roster Spots
Two important roster-related dates for the 2025/26 NBA season are now behind us — teams can no longer sign players to two-way contracts and players who are waived by their current clubs from here on out won’t be playoff-eligible for a new team.
That certainly doesn’t mean there won’t be any players signed or waived in the coming weeks, but the NBA’s transaction wire should be a little less busy going forward. That makes it a good time to step back and take stock of where things stand with rosters and contract situations around the league as we enter the home stretch of the season.
10-day contracts
After Killian Hayes‘ 10-day contract with the Kings expired on Wednesday night, there are currently just two active 10-day deals around the NBA, as our tracker shows. Those deals are as follows:
- Utah Jazz: Mo Bamba (runs through March 7)
- Brooklyn Nets: Grant Nelson (runs through March 8)
Following a flurry of 10-day signings during and after the All-Star break, no team has finalized a 10-day deal in nearly a week, but I’d expect action to pick up on that front shortly.
A year ago, a total of 23 10-day contracts were signed between March 6 and the end of the season, with a handful of players receiving multiple deals – and, in some cases, rest-of-season commitments – from their respective teams. There are still a number of clubs across the league with open roster spots, and many of those openings figure to be temporarily filled with 10-day signees in the coming days and weeks.
Pending deals
Before we take a look at exactly which teams have roster spots to fill, it’s worth noting that there’s still one reported transaction that hasn’t been officially completed. The Nuggets reached an agreement with point guard Tyus Jones on Monday but have yet to formally announce his new deal.
No corresponding roster move will be needed for Denver, since the team already has an open spot on its 15-man roster, and it shouldn’t be long before Jones officially joins the roster. As Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports tweets, the 29-year-old was at the Nuggets’ practice facility on Wednesday and is expected to be available for the club’s game against the Lakers on Thursday.
[UPDATE: Jones has officially signed with the Nuggets.]
Open roster spots
As our tracker shows, the following teams currently have one spot available on their 15-man standard rosters:
- Golden State Warriors
- Houston Rockets
- Orlando Magic
- Sacramento Kings
- Toronto Raptors
The Nuggets technically belong on this list too, but they’ll have a full roster once they officially sign Jones. The Jazz and Nets could also join this group if they don’t re-sign Bamba and Nelson, respectively, after their 10-day contracts expire.
The Warriors and Rockets are operating in luxury tax territory, and while they have plenty of room below their hard caps to add a 15th man, they’re probably not all that eager to increase their projected tax bills by bringing in someone who won’t play at all.
The Magic, Kings, and Raptors are all operating less than $1MM away from the tax line, but each team has enough room to bring in a minimum-salary veteran on a rest-of-season contract without becoming a taxpayer, so if there’s someone out there they like, they don’t necessarily have to wait.
Finally, there’s one notable team not mentioned in the list above because they technically have three open 15-man roster spots, not just one. That’s the Celtics. Boston is in the midst of executing an intricately timed plan to meet the NBA’s rules related to roster minimums for the rest of the season while narrowly staying out of the tax.
After 10-day deals for Dalano Banton and John Tonje expired over the weekend, it’s a safe bet that Boston will stick with just 12 players for the maximum allowable 14 days before making a couple roster additions in mid-March. Current two-way player Max Shulga will likely get a promotion at that time for financial reasons (his rookie minimum salary wouldn’t be subject to “tax variance“). If all goes according to plan, the Celtics will be able to sign a 15th man on the last day of the regular season without surpassing the tax threshold.
Warriors Notes: Curry, Green, Porzingis, Williams
Stephen Curry has been sidelined since January 30 with a lingering right knee injury, leading to some outside speculation whether the 37-year-old star should be shut down for the rest of the season. Warriors teammate Draymond Green addressed that topic on his latest podcast and determined that it’s unlikely to happen, relays Eden Collier of NBC Sports Bay Area.
“He was preparing to come back in the season where we had won 15 games (in 2019/20),” Green said. “So I say that from experience when I say, he’s not just going to shut it down just to shut it down. It’s not who he is.”
Golden State has been reeling without its top scorer, falling to 31-30 and just barely holding onto eighth place in the West. A return may still be far away, as the team announced on Sunday that Curry won’t be reevaluated for 10 more days and his absence may extend beyond that point. Green assured listeners that owner Joe Lacob would never endorse tanking, but he also acknowledged that it’s hard to run an effective offense without Curry and Jimmy Butler, who was lost for the season with a torn ACL.
“All you can do is continue to fight, make sure you’re maintaining and building good habits,” Green said. “Try to give yourself a chance to win these games.”
There’s more on the Warriors:
- Kristaps Porzingis, who has missed the past five games due to illness, is traveling with the team on its three-game road trip, according to Anthony Slater of ESPN (Twitter link). However, he’s already been ruled out of Thursday’s game at Houston. Golden State will also be without Moses Moody, who sprained his right wrist in Monday’s game, and Will Richard, who is sidelined with an ankle sprain.
- It would be a “fool’s errand” to re-sign Porzingis if he doesn’t show he can stay healthy, but his $30.7MM expiring contract will provide the Warriors with some cap flexibility for the offseason, notes Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. The organization wanted to get something in return for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield, but it’s going to take a summer of maneuvering to make the deal pay off, Poole adds.
- The Warriors’ injuries enabled two-way player Nate Williams to log nearly 22 minutes and score a career-high 18 points on Monday, notes Sam Gordon of The San Francisco Chronicle (subscription required). Williams, who went 3-of-4 from beyond the arc and spent time guarding Kawhi Leonard, could play an important role until the rest of the roster gets healthier. “I’m just being myself and the team allows me to do that,” he said. “I give all thanks to (Steve Kerr) and the coaching staff for giving me an opportunity. They just let me be myself and they just put me on game as I go along.”
Warriors GM Dunleavy Talks Curry, Kerr, Kuminga, Porzingis
If Milwaukee had been willing to make a deal at last month’s trade deadline, the Warriors likely would’ve given up several of their future first-round picks – and swaps – to acquire star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. However, speaking to Tim Kawakami on his TK Show podcast (Spotify link) on Tuesday, general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. pointed to the health issues currently afflicting his top players as an example of why surrendering significant future draft capital carries significant risk.
“I think going back to the Jimmy (Butler) trade last year, that’s why we loved the trade so much, because we’re getting a great player and we’re only giving up that year’s pick. There’s nothing out in the future,” Dunleavy said, according to Kawakami. “…I think we’re always being disciplined about using those picks, considering them in trades, things like that. But when you’re put in a situation like this, where your best players are out and you’re struggling to win games, I think you appreciate having that draft capital moving forward.”
In addition to missing Butler (torn ACL) and Kristaps Porzingis (illness), the Warriors are currently playing without their top scorer, Stephen Curry, who has been out since January 30 due to a knee issue. Asked by Kawakami if there’s any possibility that Curry gets shut down for the rest of the season, Dunleavy didn’t rule it out, but said it would be “very surprising” if that happens.
“I’m not a doctor and things can go a certain way,” he said. “I don’t want the headline to be, ‘Steph may be done for the year’ because I’m not ruling it out. But just because he’s not playing right now, I just have to acknowledge that, ‘Yeah, sure, there’s a chance.’ But we don’t expect that.”
Here are a few more of Dunleavy’s most notable quotes from his appearance on The TK Show:
On whether he expects Steve Kerr to be the Warriors’ head coach in 2026/27:
“I don’t see why not. I think Steve’s mentioned wanting to get to the end of the season and figure it out. I think things, for him, are going well. We’ll figure all that out when it comes. I think it’s been interesting, like the focus for us internally between myself, (team owner) Joe (Lacob), the players, Steve, has really been on like getting this thing right the rest of the season. So we haven’t put a whole bunch of thought into it.
“But you know, obviously, on a personal level, (I) love having Steve here. Yeah, I would project that he’s our coach next year. But again, we’re going down to absolute certainties, and a lot of it’s in his court, so we’ll have to see.”
On whether the Warriors seriously considered hanging onto Jonathan Kuminga through last month’s trade deadline:
“I think you guys know, it’s been put out there about (Kuminga’s) trade demand, and I think any time a player wants that, I want to try to accommodate. You want people who want to be here. And for that reason, we felt it was the right time to move on. I think JK’s happy about it, I think we’re in the right spot for it, it was just kind of the right thing to do at the time.”
On whether he’s satisfied with the information-gathering process that led to the Warriors acquiring Porzingis (who has been limited to a single outing since the trade due to health issues):
“That’s a great question, it’s a fair question. I think it’s really, really complicated. This is a unique situation. I’d say from our end, I feel good about, from the information we had, I feel good about our evaluation of what that was on the medical side. And for that reason, that’s why we made the trade.”
Injury Notes: Booker, Highsmith, Zion, Jovic, Warriors
The Suns, who went just 4-7 in February as they dealt with injuries affecting multiple starters and rotation players, will get some reinforcements on Tuesday in Sacramento.
As Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic relays (via Twitter), star guard Devin Booker is no longer listed on Phoenix’s injury report after missing the past four games due to a right hip strain. While the Suns split those four games without Booker available, they were clearly missing their leading scorer, having ranked 29th in the NBA in offensive rating during that stretch.
Recently signed swingman Haywood Highsmith also isn’t included on the Suns’ latest injury report, Rankin notes, which suggests he should be ready to make his season debut. Highsmith underwent surgery to address a torn meniscus in his right knee last August and experienced a setback in his rehab in October. He was traded from Miami to Brooklyn last offseason, was waived by the Nets last month, and signed with the Suns as he ramped up to return to action.
Two of Phoenix’s top wing defenders – Dillon Brooks (left hand fracture) and Jordan Goodwin (left calf strain) – remain out, so Highsmith should get a shot to earn rotation minutes now that he’s healthy.
We have more health-related updates from around the NBA:
- Pelicans forward Zion Williamson sat out on Sunday due to an ankle sprain, ending his career-high streak of 35 consecutive games played, but he’s listed as questionable to play on Tuesday vs. the Lakers and told Malika Andrews of ESPN (Twitter video link) he expects to suit up. Williamson will be motivated to appear in at least 16 of New Orleans’ final 20 games this season, since doing so would ensure he locks in at least 80% of his $42.2MM salary for 2026/27 (the remaining 20% could become guaranteed if he meets weight-related benchmarks).
- Heat forward/center Nikola Jovic will miss a fifth consecutive game on Tuesday due to a lower back injury, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Jovic says he doesn’t have any disk issues and doesn’t think the ailment is related to the stress reaction in his back that sidelined him for a significant portion of the 2022/23 season, but he admitted he’s struggling with the injury. “My back doesn’t feel good,” Jovic said. “The scan shows I got some inflammation, and one of my nerves doesn’t look great right now.”
- Warriors wing Moses Moody, who didn’t play in the fourth quarter of the team’s loss to the Clippers on Monday, jammed his wrist and injured his shoulder, according to head coach Steve Kerr, who said Moody will be evaluated further on Tuesday (Twitter link via Nick Friedell of ESPN).
- Kristaps Porzingis missed a fifth straight game with an illness on Monday and it’s unclear when the Warriors big man will return to action, Friedell writes for The Athletic. “It’s a little mysterious,” Kerr said of Porzingis’ illness. “We’re obviously working with him, and he can get some clarity, and he can kind of break through, and he can get to a point where he’s consistently healthy, but that’s something that the medical staff is working hard on with him. I’m not going to posit any medical theories anymore.”
Warriors Notes: Santos, Curry, Horford, Playoffs
Gui Santos has been given more ball-handling responsibility for the Warriors of late and it has sparked a new excitement in him, Nick Avila writes for NBC Sports Bay Area.
“Yeah, I’m loving it — not that I don’t like the other part,” Santos said. “I love to just be on the NBA floor, but when you’re on the NBA floor and you’ve got a little bit more freedom to find teammates and either go to the basket and do all that, that gives you so much more joy to play. So, I really love it, the momentum.”
The newly extended forward has increased his assist numbers to 4.6 per game over his last five, and his playing style has been infectious among his teammates. However, he knows that his role will change again once Stephen Curry returns.
After receiving his three-year extension, Santos hopes to be an inspiration for other Brazilian players looking to make it in the NBA, Dalton Johnson writes for NBC Sports Bay Area.
“I’m the only one here, so I’m the biggest example when you look at basketball and the NBA being the biggest level you can get to. Everybody is looking at me as an example,” Santos said. “For me, it’s just trying to be a great guy and show that the work ethic is the most important thing. That’s what got me here in this position.”
Head coach Steve Kerr praised Santos following the announcement of the deal.
“He’s been such an important player for us, but also just an incredible development story. Second-round pick and spent his entire first year in Santa Cruz,” Kerr said. “He’s become one of our most important players. We’re all so thrilled for him. He’s excited, it’s a great day.”
Curry reiterated that sentiment, according to NBC Sports Bay Area’ Eden Collier.
“He was so happy to just be on an NBA team at one point,” Curry said. “And now to being a big part of our rotation, really developing and becoming an impactful player on both ends of the floor and being rewarded with that type of security — coming where he came from, it’s a big deal, it’s a big celebration today for him.”
We have more from the Warriors:
- Reacting to the news that Curry will miss at least the next five games with his lingering knee injury, Johnson suggests for NBC Sports Bay Area that it might make sense to shut the star point guard down until the play-in tournament. Given the 4.5-game gap between the Warriors and No. 6 Lakers and the 7.5-game gap that separates Golden State from the No. 11 Grizzlies, caution should be the name of the game when it comes to bringing Curry back, Johnson argues. “It’s just something that you don’t want to have lingering because it can get worse,” Curry said when asked about the injury.
- When Al Horford left the Celtics for the Warriors this offseason, the sense was that he was leaving a team in a gap year for a potential contender. So far, the opposite has been true in terms of the two teams’ relative success levels, and Horford’s integration with the team has required a bit of a learning curve, Gary Washburn writes for the Boston Globe. “I think that the difference is in different places you look for different things,” Horford said. “So in Boston, we ran a lot of pick-and-rolls, and then some isolations, and then we got to moving the ball. And here with the Warriors, we try to get the ball to Draymond (Green), or get the ball in the post, and then play more in the perimeter, play splits and cut to the basket and things like that. And then when Steph is on the court, obviously all that ties in together. So there’s some pick and roll, but then there’s a lot of off-the-ball movement.”
- Kerr is realistic about the Warriors’ chances of earning a top-six spot in the West to avoid the play-in tournament, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Joaquin Ruiz writes. “It’s a lot to make up with 22 games left,” Kerr said. “We don’t even talk about it. It’s not anything that is worth discussing because we just have to try to go out and win and see what happens.“
Stephen Curry To Be Reevaluated in 10 Days
Warriors guard Stephen Curry will be reevaluated in 10 days as he seeks to return from the right knee injury that has kept him sidelined since January 30, ESPN’s Anthony Slater reports (Twitter link). That means that Curry will miss at least five more games in addition to the 10 he has already missed.
It’s essentially the same update the Warriors provided on February 19 when they announced that an MRI on Curry’s troublesome knee revealed no structural damage but that he would miss at least five games and would be reevaluated in 10 days. Today marked 10 days since that announcement.
Curry is dealing with patellofemoral pain syndrome, colloquially known as runner’s knee. He has referred to it as an “unpredictable” issue.
Head coach Steve Kerr previously stated that the team has no interest in shutting Curry down for the season. Golden State is currently the eighth seed in the Western Conference.
Curry is averaging 27.2 points and 4.8 assists per game this season despite averaging just 31.3 minutes per night, one of the lowest marks of his career. He’ll fall shy of the 65-game minimum for end-of-season awards, meaning he’ll miss out on All-NBA honors for just the second time in the past 13 years.
Curry will remain sidelined for at least the team’s upcoming games against the Clippers (Monday), Rockets (Thursday), Thunder (Saturday), Jazz (March 9), and Bulls (March 10).
Warriors Notes: Porzingis, Curry, Santos, Richard
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said he made a “stupid mistake” while discussing Kristaps Porzingis‘ health issues during an appearance Friday on a local radio show, writes Evan Webeck of The California Post. Kerr explained on 95.7 FM that Porzingis, who missed a fourth straight game on Saturday, has been suffering this week from a contagious illness that’s causing him to lose “a lot” of fluids. The Warriors coach said it’s not related to postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), the condition Porzingis said last October that he had been diagnosed with.
During that radio appearance, Kerr referred to Porzingis having POTS as “misinformation,” explaining that he was relaying what he’d been told by Hawks general manager Onsi Saleh, who formerly worked in Golden State’s front office and traded Porzingis to the Warriors at the deadline.
“I called (Saleh) and I said, ‘Is this POTS story real?’ He said it’s actually not POTS. That was some misinformation that was out there,” Kerr said on Friday. “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 has nothing to do with the illness last week. He was just sick.”
A day later, Kerr walked back the comments he made during that radio interview, telling reporters that Porzingis is being afflicted by a “medical issue way beyond my capabilities of explaining.”
“It was a stupid mistake by me to talk about something that I’m not qualified to talk about,” Kerr added. “So I regretted even trying to discuss the diagnosis. That was my mistake. I need to leave that to the professionals.”
Porzingis has only made one 17-minute appearance for the Warriors since the trade, but Webeck states that he returned to practice on Friday and Kerr said he’s feeling better.
There’s more on the Warriors:
- Stephen Curry said he’s not quite ready to return in an interview during the telecast of Saturday’s game, relays Angelina Martin of NBC Sports Bay Area. He missed his 10th straight game due to runner’s knee. “It’s going to be a little longer, but, like I said, right now with this one, it’s just about each day,” Curry told ESPN’s Malika Andrews. “Can you stack good days, and I’ve done that, so hopefully they can unleash me on the court soon, and like I said, get back out there sooner than later.”
- Gui Santos, who signed a three-year extension on Saturday, said it’s a result of doing what the Warriors have asked of him, per Nick Friedell of The Athletic. Santos has been able to work his way into the starting lineup after being drafted with the 55th pick in 2022. “I think the key word for that is patience,” he said. “Because when I got here, I was a point guard. Playing back in Brazil was like playing as a point guard, having the ball in my hand. Then I spent the whole year in the G League just learning how to fit in the system here. Because my goal always was playing in the NBA, playing for the Warriors. And I asked them what I got to do to do that, and they said, ‘We’re gonna give you the way. You got to play hard on defense, you got to be crashing the boards all the time, and you just got to find Steph — it’s easy.’ So I said, ‘All right, I’m doing that.’ I was just working at that in my first couple years.”
- The Warriors’ injury list grew longer when guard Will Richard was forced out of Saturday’s game with a sprained right ankle, the team announced (via Twitter).
Warriors Sign Gui Santos To Three-Year Extension
Third-year forward Gui Santos has signed a multiyear contract extension with the Warriors, the team announced in a press release (Twitter link).
Santos signed a three-year, $15MM extension which features a player option in 2028/29, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports (via Twitter).
After playing a modest role for most of the season, Santos has been playing major minutes of late with Jimmy Butler sidelined due to a torn ACL. The Brazilian has thrived over his past 12 appearances, averaging 15.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.9 blocks in 28.8 minutes per game.
Santos has started 10 of those 12 games, including the team’s last nine, and has posted a shooting line of .588/.431/.692 over that stretch.
Overall, Santos has appeared in 48 games (16.0 MPG) this season for Golden State, averaging 6.6 PPG, 3.2 RPG and 1.7 APG on .531/.390/.680 shooting.
Santos would have been a restricted free agent in the offseason. Instead of waiting until the summer to negotiate a new deal, the 23-year-old opted to sign a long-term extension to stay with the franchise that selected him 55th overall in the 2022 draft.
Although Santos doesn’t have a ton of NBA experience, $5MM annually is still a team-friendly rate considering his recent contributions and his projected role for the rest of the season. When I took an in-depth look at Santos a few days ago in a Front Office article, I speculated that he might be able to get $6-9MM per year in restricted free agency.
Still, having that player option for ’28/29 was a nice compromise for Santos. He will be extension-eligible again two years from now (Feb. 28, 2028) and would be an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2028 if he declines his third-year option.
Santos was one of several players around the league eligible for veteran contract extensions. The full list can be found right here.