There's no such thing as an untradable player in the NBA. As frequently as we call contracts immovable, it's worth remembering that Russell Westbrook once changed teams in all five seasons of a supermax contract. Proximity to retirement isn't necessarily an impediment either. In 2007, the Dallas Mavericks managed to sign-and-trade Keith Van Horn roughly eight months after he played his final NBA game because they needed some filler salary to complete their Jason Kidd blockbuster. If a team wants to trade a player badly enough, there's almost always a way to do so.

Still, the Golden State Warriors are facing an uphill climb to move Kristaps Porziņģis, at least for now. On Wednesday, ESPN reported that the Warriors are exploring possible deals involving their high-profile center, but for a variety of reasons, he is an enormously tricky player to trade right now:

• Porziņģis has been dealing with POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) over the past two seasons, and is considering stepping away from basketball for good. At the very least, availability concerns mean he has no positive trade value as a player right now. Any team considering acquiring him would have to view any future on-court value as merely a bonus.
• When they re-signed Porziņģis this offseason, the Warriors gave him a $3 million guarantee for the 2027-28 season. This is by no means an enormous figure, but in the apron era, every cent counts. No team is going to be eager to pay Porziņģis $3 million not to play for them, making him a bit more cumbersome than a traditional expiring contract. Frankly, this was a bizarre own goal on Golden State's part. One potential path for Golden State's 2027 offseason is near-max cap space, and considering Porziņģis would have needed to pass a physical with another team in order to leave, it's just hard to imagine he had the leverage to demand any sort of 2027-28 guarantee. That is especially true considering the Warriors are paying him $20 million this season, far above the mid-level exceptions most other teams had to potentially offer him.
• By virtue of using the taxpayer mid-level exception on De'Anthony Melton, the Warriors are hard-capped at the second apron. They only have around $350,000 in room beneath it right now, meaning Golden State lacks the wiggle room to take on a bigger salary than Porziņģis without adding other players.
• A good chunk of the NBA is not eligible to be traded right now. Most 2026 free agents are not tradable until Dec. 15, with a handful having to wait until Jan. 15 instead. Porziņģis notably avoids that fate because the Warriors managed to sneak his deal in right before the beginning of free agency, allowing them to structure it as an extension that did not include a raise big enough to trigger a six-month trade restriction. He can be moved right now, but many other players who might factor into a deal like this, including seven of his teammates, cannot.

Warriors exploring trades for Kristaps Porziņģis, who is contemplating future amid health issues, per report

Robby Kalland

Put all of this together and you have an enormously inconvenient set of trade circumstances. The Warriors, with Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody also sidelined, are starting the season with almost $90 million in salary sitting out due to injuries that preceded this season. Part of their motivation in exploring a Porziņģis trade would likely be to salvage this season. If they have to wait until Dec. 15 for the right combination of players to become tradable, it might be too late. 

At best, Porziņģis is essentially just matching money from a trade perspective. At worst, he's someone they'll have to attach something to in order to move.

So, are there any viable moves out there? A few come to mind.

Milwaukee Bucks

The best version of Golden State's roster is pretty dependent on having centers that can shoot. As the Warriors learned with Jonathan Kuminga, pairing a third shaky 3-point shooter with Butler and Draymond Green tends to compromise their spacing. Green can play center when needed, but at this point shouldn't do so on a full-time basis. And while Al Horford is here, he's 40 and not equipped for a starter's workload. This was the theoretical purpose of the Porziņģis acquisition. Golden State needs tall people who can make 3s, especially now that Quinten Post is gone.

The only starting-caliber shooting center available at what would probably be a reasonable price is Myles Turner. The Milwaukee Bucks signed him in a last-ditch effort to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo. It didn't work. Turner had a bad year and has three expensive seasons left on his contract. With Kel'El Ware needing minutes to potentially grow into Milwaukee's long-term center, swapping out Turner for a shorter Porziņģis contract and Moody (needed for money-matching purposes) makes plenty of sense. 

The Bucks don't even have to worry about Porziņģis' health knocking them into the relegation zone because they don't control their own first-round pick. A team like Milwaukee, with no short-term stakes, is the ideal landing spot for Porziņģis. If he can come back down the line, great, he'd be a nice backup. If they have to cut him, well, it's not as though they needed that wiggle room anyway.

There's one pretty substantial hiccup here, though, and it's the remaining years left on Turner's contract. Adding him more or less takes max-level cap space off the table for the Warriors next summer. The question then becomes, how valuable is that option, really? Nikola Jokić and Antetokounmpo are technically slated for unrestricted free agency... but does anyone really doubt that they'll re-sign with their current teams? Even if they don't, why would they pick the aging Warriors? Karl-Anthony Towns can opt out of his contract in New York, but he's made it clear he wants to be a Knick for life. Odds are, something gets done there. Difference-makers just don't change teams through free agency anymore.

Besides, preserving that cap space means renouncing their rights on their own free agents. Maybe Green takes a discount to stay for sentimental reasons. Butler has never shown a willingness to do that. Adding Turner robs the Warriors of upside over the next few years, but it's not as though Golden State really had much of it to begin with. What's the goal here? Are they genuinely trying to win a title? Or just trying to allow Stephen Curry to retire with some dignity? If it's the latter, Turner makes sense.

Charlotte Hornets

The Hornets willingly took a step back this season by trading LaMelo Ball, and ever since, they've been perfectly willing to take on money when it suits them. They got three second-round picks to eat the Dorian Finney-Smith contract, for example, and are more than flexible enough to waive Porziņģis next offseason if needed. If anything, they might prefer to use his inflated cap number and partial guarantee to get more draft capital to take on another bigger contract down the line.

The Hornets are relatively light on high-end talent but stuffed with mid-sized contracts attached to playable NBA veterans. Royce O'Neale could help the Warriors. Grant Williams could help the Warriors. Grayson Allen could help the Warriors, though they already have quite a few shooting guards. If the name of the game here is just "turn salary that isn't playing for us into salary that could play for us," Charlotte is a pretty easy fit. Of the three, Williams has the only expiring deal, but O'Neale has the lowest cap figure.

The Warriors have three tradable second-round picks. Is that enough to make a deal like this happen? Maybe, depending on who the Hornets are sending out. Charlotte might want to see how its rotation shakes out over the first few weeks before landing on who, if anyone, it would want to trade. First-round capital, even a swap, just doesn't make sense in a deal this small, so it's either seconds or bust.

New Orleans Pelicans

The Pelicans are mostly a placeholder for the concept of using Porziņģis' salary plus draft picks to trade for a very good player. The Warriors have, at times, been linked to both Trey Murphy and Herb Jones. The Pelicans, having re-signed Saddiq Bey to a three-year extension, may elect to move one of their other wings to eventually give him a starting job. Jones, as a shaky shooter, is the worst fit of the two. Murphy, given his scoring and team-friendly contract, would cost far more. Golden State controls most of its own draft capital. The question is how much, if any, actually makes sense to give up in a win-now trade.

Murphy is a very valuable No. 3 option. The Warriors are emphatically not a No. 3 option away from any sort of meaningful winning. If this is the direction the Warriors want to take a Porziņģis trade, it probably has to come with some proof of concept. If Curry can keep Golden State in, say, the race for the top six for a month or two, and Butler looks close to a return, then maybe it makes sense to make a trade involving multiple first-round picks. In the more likely event that the Warriors are more of a Play-In team (or worse), those picks become precious.

Curry is still a top-10 player when healthy. He missed half of last season and is nearing the end of his legendary career. Golden State has to balance the upside his mere presence creates with the reality that his window probably closed when Butler tore his ACL last season. Getting better while he's still a star-level player would be nice. This is still, functionally, a rebuilding team, and basically everything would have to go right to justify trading future for present here.