Warriors’ Gary Payton II out at least one more week

Warriors swingman Gary Payton II will miss at least one more week due to his right calf strain, tweets Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Golden State announced that Payton is “making good progress” from the injury and he will be reevaluated next week, per Slater.

Payton, 31, is averaging 5.9 PPG, 3.1 RPG and 1.2 SPG in 14 games (17.3 MPG) thus far in 2023-24. He sustained the injury on November 28 against the Kings.

Moses Moody, Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga figure to receive more minutes with the defensive stalwart sidelined, though all three players have seen their playing time fluctuate to this point.

Payton, who helped the Warriors win a championship in 2022, is making $8.72M this season and holds a $9.13M player option for ’24-25.

Golden State has had an uneven start to the ’23-24 season, currently sitting with a 10-11 record, good for the No. 11 seed in the Western Conference. That said, it’s obviously early, and the Warriors are only two games back of the current No. 6 seed, Sacramento.