Recent Warriors Trade Acquisition Makes List of Most Overrated Players

The Golden State Warriors didn’t land the big fish at this year’s NBA trade deadline. The organization took a stab at Giannis Antetokounmpo, a star they’ve had their sights on for years, but weren’t able to pry the star away from Milwaukee. Besides landing Giannis, the other goal for the Warriors at the deadline was to get rid of Jonathan Kuminga and get some value back for him. 

In the end, they did extract a bit of value from Kuminga on the trade market. They packaged him with Buddy Hield and got Kristaps Porzingis in return. Porzingis has been dealing with health issues for most of his career, but has been an All-Star as well as a key role player on a championship Celtics team. 

Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report recently came out with a list, “Ranking the Most Overrated NBA Players Right Now,” and Porzingis was named as the fourth most overrated player in the league. 

“Porziņģis continues to be plagued by injuries and is currently sidelined with left Achilles tendinitis. He's played just 17 total games for the Atlanta Hawks all season and just five since November.

Porziņģis was averaging just 45.4 healthy games over the last eight years coming into this season. Injuries have unfortunately robbed him of a potential Hall of Fame career.

That didn't stop the Golden State Warriors from making Porziņģis their big trade deadline acquisition, however. Obviously, the relationship with Jonathan Kuminga had run its course, but he was still one of the Warriors' best trade assets to go star shopping with. Giving him up along with Buddy Hield was a big overpay and not reflective of the player that Porziņģis currently is.”

Funnily, the Warriors actually wanted to get off of Hield’s guaranteed money for next season. Because of that, they probably did get Porzingis at a reasonable price. Whether he is actually overrated this year or not will fully depend on how well he can stay on the court.