Warriors News Digest: Podziemski Held Out of Season Opener
A late scratch for a reliable piece of the rotation is the lone Warriors headline worth your time today.
Podziemski Out Against the Lakers
The big news out of Warriors camp is a surprise one: Brandin Podziemski will sit out the season opener against the Lakers with back soreness, per ESPN. That's notable because, as ESPN points out, the 23-year-old has been durable — this isn't a guy who's usually popping up on the injury report.
From a coaching standpoint, this is the kind of scratch you pay attention to even when it's "just soreness." Back issues are tricky. They don't always show up on a highlight reel, but they affect the stuff that doesn't get measured — lateral quickness, box-out leverage, the little twists and turns guards make fighting through screens on defense. Teams and training staffs are usually cautious with backs for exactly that reason, so sitting him for an opener rather than trying to play through it is a reasonable, conservative call.
The bigger-picture question for Golden State is what the rotation looks like with him out, especially in a measuring-stick game against the Lakers right out of the gate. Podziemski's minutes — ball-handling, perimeter defense, the glue-guy stuff — have to go somewhere, and how the staff redistributes those reps in game one will tell you something about the pecking order early in the season. Worth watching whether this is a one-game pause or something that lingers into the first week.
That's the only Warriors-specific item in the last 48 hours. The other note floating around — the annual NBA championship and MVP odds roundup — is purely a league-wide betting piece with no specific line on Golden State, so there's nothing there to dig into.