Podziemski played all 82 last season, and he will miss the first game of this one
Golden State ruled its starting guard out of Wednesday's opener at the Lakers with lower back soreness. He had played 96 regular-season games in a row, logged more minutes than anyone on the roster last season, and signed a five-year, $110 million extension on October 10. Curry is probable.
The Warriors will open the season at the Lakers on Wednesday night without Brandin Podziemski, and of all the names on their injury report, his is the one nobody had budgeted for.
The club ruled him out on Tuesday with lower back soreness, Anthony Slater of ESPN reported. Podziemski had sat out the previous three days of practice and had been listed as questionable before the team made it official on the eve of the game.
Slater called it a surprise. The numbers agree.
The one who was always there#
Podziemski played all 82 regular-season games last season. Slater counts 18 players in the league who did that. He started 43 of them and played 2,333 minutes, the most of anyone on the current roster by Basketball Reference's season totals. Draymond Green was next, at 1,869. Stephen Curry played 43 games.
The run is longer than one season. Podziemski left a game at Brooklyn on March 6, 2025 after 44 seconds and missed the next five. He has not missed a regular-season game since. Counted off Basketball Reference's game logs and Golden State's schedule, that is the last 14 games of 2024-25 and all 82 of 2025-26.
Ninety-six in a row, and the 97th is the one he misses.
On an older team, Slater wrote, the 23-year-old is considered the most durable and reliably available player in the rotation. On this team, that makes him a load-bearing wall. Green is 36. Al Horford is 40 and is not playing back-to-backs, Nick Friedell of The Athletic reported. Curry is 38.
Who else is not there#
The list Podziemski joins was already long. Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody are rehabbing knee injuries and are out for the next couple of months, per Slater. Kristaps Porzingis is out indefinitely with what Slater calls a private health issue. That is three players Slater describes as projected starters, before Tuesday.
Curry is listed as probable with right ankle soreness from Sunday's open scrimmage. Slater reported that all indications are he plays, at somewhere near 28 to 32 minutes.
That leaves Golden State's healthy guards as Curry, De'Anthony Melton, Gary Payton II, Will Richard and Brandon Williams, with LJ Cryer on a two-way deal, by ESPN's roster at 2:45 a.m. Pacific Wednesday. Richard played 69 games as a rookie last season. Payton played 73. Melton played 49.
Slater's report does not say who starts in Podziemski's place. The club had not said either.
The money just arrived#
The timing has an edge to it. On October 10, Podziemski's agent, Bill Duffy, told Shams Charania of ESPN that the guard and the Warriors had agreed to a five-year, $110 million rookie-scale extension. It begins next season. This season he is still on the last year of the rookie deal (ESPN lists this year's salary at $5,679,458, which is a rounding error on the extension).
Nobody has suggested the back is more than soreness, and one game is one game. The Lakers do not care about either point. They come in healthier, by Slater's report: Walker Kessler is cleared to start at center, and their list is Collin Sexton, questionable with a calf strain, with the rookie Cameron Carr and Adou Thiero out.
The read: Podziemski plays on Friday night against Memphis at Chase Center. Three practices missed is a real absence, and a lower back is not an ankle. But the club ruled him out the night before an opener on the road, not for a week, and the next game is two nights later at home. If he is still listed out on Friday, the soreness is something more than soreness, and the 96 becomes a number about the past.
Tip-off on Wednesday is 7 p.m. Pacific.
Sources: The ruling, the three missed practices, the questionable listing, Curry's probable status and minutes projection, the 18 players with 82 games, the injury list for Butler, Moody and Porzingis, the extension's start and the Lakers' injury report from Anthony Slater, ESPN, October 20, 2026. Horford and back-to-backs from Nick Friedell, The Athletic, as relayed by Hoops Rumors on October 21. The extension terms from Bill Duffy to Shams Charania, in Anthony Slater's ESPN story of October 10, 2026. Games, starts and minutes for 2025-26 and the 2024-25 game log from Basketball Reference, read October 21, 2026; the consecutive-game count is ours, from that log and Golden State's 2024-25 schedule on the same site. Healthy guards, statuses and ages from ESPN's Warriors roster, read 2:45 a.m. Pacific on October 21. Schedule and tip-off time from ESPN's Warriors schedule.
