Please buckle your seat belt and keep your hands inside, because the Jonathan Kuminga roller coaster is still taking laps around the track for the Golden State Warriors. Kuminga was once a focal point of the Warriors’ “two timelines” approach, but then fell out of favor and out of the rotation entirely, until late last season when injuries forced Steve Kerr to play him.
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Kuminga was a restricted free agent this summer, and though the expectation was that he would land elsewhere due to his contracts demands and he re-signed with Golden State on a two-year, $48.5 million contract that includes a team option for the second year.
That kind of deal brought Kuminga back but also made it easy to trade him in the future. To Kerr’s surprise though, he got off to a great start this season and even earned a starting role.
The Warriors were winning, and the future seemed bright, but something has since changed. Now the Warriors have fallen below .500, and Kuminga isn’t even playing. A split seems inevitable.
Chris Mannix and Rachel Nichols discussed Kuminga’s situation on yesterday’s episode of Open Floor. Mannix made the case for a couple of potential trade partners that made sense.
“I would start with New Orleans,” he said. “The Pelicans are going nowhere. They’re building around a young core. Derik Queen, Jeremiah Fears, who knows what happens with Zion down the line.”
“The Pelicans have a couple of guys that would be very interesting to me if I was the Warriors. That would be Trey Murphy III — great shooter, good wing player. And Herb Jones. Versatile, all-around player, excellent defender,” he added.
The Warriors have been better defensively than they have been on the offensive end this year. They rank sixth in defensive rating and 22nd in offensive rating, but Mannix believes they still need defensive help to become contenders again.
He cited both their perimeter defense and their rim protection as a concern, and on that front, he thinks they could turn to the Milwaukee Bucks for help.
“Let’s play it out, say the Bucks say, ‘You know what, screw it, it’s not gonna work, we’re putting Giannis on the block,'” Mannix said. “Maybe then you trade Myles Turner, and if I’m Golden State, I’m probably looking at Turner and going, ‘That guy can really help me, and maybe I can piece together some contracts to get a deal like that done.'”
Kuminga has talent, and he’s more athletic than anyone on Golden State’s roster, so it’s mystifying why things just can’t seem to work there when he fills an obvious need on a team that often looks old and slow. Mannix couldn’t understand it either, but he laid it out in a way that’s difficult to argue against.
“I think Kuminga’s a good player,” he claimed.
“I think he’s not going to be a good player in Golden State. It just doesn’t seem to be working there. He doesn’t blend with the stars they have there, he and Steve Kerr just seem like they’re on the wrong page. It’s not a toxic dynamic between the two, but Steve Kerr clearly doesn’t trust him, and Jonathan Kuminga doesn’t seem like he wants to play for him anymore,” suggested Mannix.
There should be interest in Kuminga around the league, but the Warriors also aren’t helping his value by DNP-CD’ing him for guys like Pat Spencer and Gui Santos. The Kings tried to get him this offseason, so that could be a team to watch in addition to the Pelicans and Bucks.
Due to his contract, Kuminga can’t be traded until January 15th. That gives the team almost a month to show him off and shop him, which is something they’d be wise to do instead of letting him rot on the bench. Besides, whether it’s a great fit or not, their record proves that they could use him.
Last year’s Warriors were kick-started by the Jimmy Butler trade in February. Will trading Kuminga have the same effect? Well have to wait at least four weeks to find out, and Warriors fans are hoping that the team can stay in the race until then.
