It's unwise to put too much stock in the way a team handles their preseason matchups. But for the Golden State Warriors, there's plenty of room to speculate and project things into the regular season—especially given the uncertainty facing the rotation when the campaign kicks off.
Steve Kerr's decision to start Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Yaxel Lendeborg, Draymond Green, and Al Horford in the team's first preseason game this weekend, therefore, does carry some significance. Of course, there's room for things to change here. Perhaps De'Anthony Melton wins the battle for the starting shooting guard spot, and perhaps things get dicier between Lendeborg and Gui Santos than we originally may have envisioned.
But the clearest development from this training camp dispatch is that Steve Kerr doesn't seem comfortable starting Green at the five at this point in his career, slotting in Al Horford at the starting center spot with Kristaps Porzingis' availability for the start of the regular season in doubt.
In theory, it might make sense to toss both Lendeborg and Santos into the starting lineup to provide the necessary floor spacing to keep Green at the five, leaving Horford on the bench and keeping the hierarchy of the center rotation relatively intact. But with this decision to move Horford to the starting lineup, Golden State seems to officially be betting on his ability to help keep the offense afloat through the early portions of the season.
Al Horford will be a major contributor for the Warriors no matter what, but a starting role ramps up the pressure
This, of course, assumes that Porzingis will miss the start of the season—which we haven't received confirmation of yet. Porzingis was simply slated to miss this week of practice with an undisclosed health issue. But given his history, it's safe to say the Warriors are preparing for life without their starting center, at least in the interim.
Porzingis is meant to be not just the starting big man for the Warriors but a major offensive contributor as well. If he can gain back some confidence from beyond the arc and start to hit his perimeter shots at the rate he's been accustomed to throughout his career, he has a real chance to function as the Warriors' second offensive option over the early portions of the season.
Horford isn't that same type of scorer. He averaged just 8.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.6 assists while shooting 36.1% from 3-point range across 45 games last season. As he enters his age-40 campaign, it's hard to expect much more from the veteran big man.
But if we're going to isolate Porzingis' importance to a singular part of his game, it's the 3-point shooting that was truly going to matter to this Warriors starting five. Although Green is seemingly being encouraged to take his perimeter opportunities when they're given to him this season, he hit just 32.6% of his attempts from that range last season. For all intents and purposes, he's still a non-shooter.
If the Warriors' new offensive system is going to work from the jump, they're going to need every player in their starting lineup outside of Green to function as a floor spacer. Horford's numbers from beyond the arc have dipped in consecutive years—dropping to 36.3% in 2024-25 and 36.1% in 2025-26 from the 41.9% mark he hit in his penultimate season with the Boston Celtics.
The minutes are also a concern here. Horford averaged just 21.5 minutes per game as he dealt with various ailments over the course of the season. If he can't top that number with Porzingis out, that leaves around 27 minutes to split between Charles Bassey and two-way contributor Graham Ike. Those pieces can provide energetic play, but neither have diverse enough offensive bags to take on those sort of extensive roles without costing the Warriors some flexibility on that end of the court.
If Horford is going to successfully function as this team's bona fide starting center over the early weeks of the regular season, they're going to need him to not only hit his 3-point shots at a consistent rate—he's going to need to take on more minutes and provide more of an offensive punch if this rotation is going to stay truly viable in Porzingis' absence.
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