Will Richard Tore a Thumb Ligament. The Warriors Now Have Four Standard Contracts Out Indefinitely.
Will Richard tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb, and the Warriors have no idea when he is coming back.
ESPN’s Anthony Slater reported the diagnosis, which appeared on Sunday’s injury report. Richard is out indefinitely. There is no timetable and no announced treatment plan. Golden State held no practice and no media availability Sunday, so there has been no comment from the team beyond listing him as out for Monday night against New Orleans.
That makes four players on standard contracts unavailable indefinitely. Jimmy Butler is on injured reserve after surgery on a torn right ACL. Moses Moody is out with a knee injury. Kristaps Porzingis announced on Nov. 6 that he is stepping away from basketball to deal with his health, and the Warriors have stopped paying him.
Richard Was Not a Spare Part
This is where the shrugging should stop.
Richard is 23, a 6-foot-3 guard out of Florida who won a national title there in 2025 and went 56th overall in that year’s draft before Golden State acquired his rights. He has played all 10 games this season and started three of them, averaging 17.2 minutes and 5.1 points while shooting 47.5 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from three.
Those are rotation numbers on a team that has run out of rotation. He started against Phoenix on Nov. 2 and Miami on Nov. 5, and Stephen Curry’s assessment of him after the Phoenix win was short and specific: “Defensively, he’s just been a pest out there.”
Golden State has used all of its standard roster space and is down to 14 healthy players, three of them on two-way deals. There is no replacement to sign without making a move first.
The Record Says Everything Is Fine
And the record is doing a lot of lying.
The Warriors started 0-3 and have won seven straight, including a 126-119 overtime win over Orlando on Saturday in which Curry scored 41 points on 13-of-19 shooting with 17 of them in the final seven minutes and overtime. At 7-3 they sit inside the top five in the West, a game and a half back of the 9-2 Lakers. They are top five in the league in points scored per 100 possessions.
They are also doing it with Curry closing games himself and a rookie covering the scoring nobody else is providing. Yaxel Lendeborg, the 11th pick in June, has been the surprise: 37 points against the Clippers on a night Curry and Draymond Green were both rested, then 23 against Orlando with 16 in the fourth quarter and overtime. Richard’s minutes now get split among Gary Payton II, De’Anthony Melton, Brandon Williams and LJ Cryer.
A rookie lottery pick playing above his draft slot is a gift. Building a seven-game winning streak on top of it, with four standard contracts sitting out and no roster flexibility, is a dare.
What Comes Next
The obvious lever is Porzingis. Slater reported the Warriors have spent weeks trying to trade him, that Porzingis is amenable to a deal, and that he is believed to be open to a buyout afterward, an angle first reported by Jake Fischer of The Stein Line. Porzingis signed a two-year, $40 million extension in June with $20 million due this season and only $3 million guaranteed next year. The Warriors have no plans to void the contract and can still move the salary before February’s deadline.
Steve Kerr has not spoken about Richard’s injury. Thumb ligament tears in the NBA have ranged from a few weeks to a few months depending on severity, and nobody has said publicly which this is.
The Warriors will be favored Monday against a 4-6 Pelicans team. They should win. They should also stop pretending this roster is deep.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
