Kristaps Porzingis, the towering former Boston Celtics center, battled through the 2025 playoffs while secretly suffering from a debilitating illness that turned every sprint into torture—postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
The 7-foot-3 big man revealed the shocking diagnosis in an exclusive interview with Fred Katz of The Athletic, explaining how the autonomic disorder spiked his heart rate dramatically upon standing, leaving him gasping for air and drained of energy.
“Doctors later diagnosed him with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, he said, more commonly referred to as POTS, an autonomic condition that can dramatically increase a patient’s heart rate when standing up instead of spread horizontal,” Katz reported. “Handled wrong—or not yet diagnosed—and POTS can lead to extreme exhaustion or dizziness.”
Porzingis described the onset as sudden and brutal: “It hit me, and it hit me like a truck. The breathing wasn’t good. I did everything I could potentially to feel as good as I could, but my engine wasn’t running the way I wanted.”
He painted a vivid picture of his exhaustion: “You know how people say, ‘Oh, I’m so fatigued.’ I’ve never used those words. I don’t even like to speak in those terms, but I really was like that. At that time, I could just lay on the couch and be a house cat.”
Throughout the regular season, Porzingis had shown no signs of compromise, delivering his usual rim protection and spacing. But in the playoffs, he appeared a shadow of himself—slow, labored, and ineffective—as the undiagnosed POTS ravaged his body behind the scenes.
The revelation casts his postseason struggles in a heartbreaking new light. While fans and analysts questioned his effort, Porzingis was fighting a hidden war just to stay upright.
Boston ultimately traded the 30-year-old to the Atlanta Hawks in the offseason, a move driven by salary cap desperation rather than performance. Stuck in the second apron with crippling financial restrictions, the Celtics needed to shed major money. Porzingis’ expiring $30 million deal became the casualty.
With Jayson Tatum sidelined and the team’s competitiveness in question, retaining Porzingis no longer made fiscal sense. Boston now starts Neemias Queta at center—a stark downgrade in size and skill.
Porzingis’ nightmare injury wasn’t just a footnote in the Celtics’ championship repeat failure. It was a silent saboteur that no one saw coming.