The Warriors don’t really have a center this season. Kristaps Porziņģis remains out indefinitely with an undisclosed health issue, and the team is now withholding payments on his $20 million contract on the grounds that he is not rendering services. Charles Bassey’s last two games have forced a question onto the rotation: should the minimum-salary big man play more, even if those minutes come out of Draymond Green’s time at center?
Bassey Fills a Hole the Roster Never Filled
The case for Bassey starts with how the frontcourt was built. Steve Kerr opened the season planning to start Green at center, and Golden State is holding 40-year-old Al Horford to around 20 minutes a game in 2026-27. Horford also cannot play back-to-back games.
That leaves a 36-year-old who is 6-foot-7 absorbing most of the nightly center minutes, which is why center is the Warriors’ only unsettled starting spot.
Bassey has been productive when he’s played. In his first start, against the Clippers, he took 20 minutes for six points and 10 rebounds. The next night, after Green’s ejection against Phoenix, he went for 19 points (7-10 FG, 5-6 FT), eight rebounds and one assist in 23 minutes. The Warriors were down 67-57 when Green was disqualified, and they outscored Phoenix by 13 points from there.
Green’s own start helps Bassey’s case. He had made only seven field goals through his first six appearances of the 2026-27 season, and he has already missed a game with what the team called bilateral low-back soreness. Every possession Bassey spends banging with opposing centers is one Green doesn’t have to.
Bassey Is Still a Small Sample, and Green Is Not a Box Score
Bassey’s résumé is thin. Before his first start he had played just 26 minutes this season, and last season he worked through five 10-day contracts between the Memphis Grizzlies, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. Kerr pulled him from the rotation entirely when the Warriors played in Denver, a game Golden State won by 20.
Two good games, one of them a half on the second night of a back-to-back, don’t establish much.
Field goals were never the measure of Green’s value either. Kerr’s 5-out offense deliberately moved playmaking away from him this season, and his worth still lies in defensive organization and guarding bigger players. Kerr was also clear in camp that Green will not be coming off the bench, and the team that has won five straight is the one Green starts for.
So benching Green for Bassey isn’t a serious option. The coach has ruled it out, and two good games from a minimum-contract center don’t outweigh a player who still organizes the defense.
Move Green to the Four
The useful version of the idea is narrower than the question suggests. Bassey should be a nightly backup center playing real minutes, and those minutes should come from the time Green spends at center, not from Green’s role. When Bassey plays the five, Green can play the four next to him, which cuts Green’s physical load at 36 without taking away what he does best.
On paper the cost is small. Bassey is on a one-year, $2.8 million veteran minimum contract, so playing him puts nothing at risk. Steady minutes would also answer what the Clippers and Suns games couldn’t: whether Bassey can hold up in lineups next to Stephen Curry and Green, and not just in games where one of them is missing.
A few things would change this. If Bassey’s rebounding and finishing fall off when he faces starting centers, Kerr’s caution was right. If the front office trades Porziņģis’s contract for a real center, Bassey goes back to third string, which is where a minimum-salary big belongs on a team trying to contend.
Until one of those happens, Green shouldn’t be playing center when there’s a 6-foot-10 option on the bench.
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