The likelihood of Jonathan Kuminga remaining with the Golden State Warriors beyond this season is decreasing by the day.
ESPN’s NBA insider Shams Charania reported on Wednesday, April 16, that Kuminga’s camp is “exhausted” by the disrespect after two straight CD-DNP (coach’s decision-did not play).
How do they go from here?
This is the biggest question hanging over the Warriors and Kuminga as they prepare to face a young, hungry, athletic Houston Rockets team in the first round of the playoffs.
“They need him in this series because you think about the athletes that Houston has,” Charania said of Kuminga on the “NBA Today” on Wednesday. “This is why they drafted Jonathan Kuminga. This is why they put so much trust in him. But back-to-back games in this play-in tournament, Steve Kerr essentially tells Jonathan Kuminga, ‘You are not in our rotation. You are not going to be playing.’
“And this is something that Jonathan Kuminga has been really immune to over the course of his career with Steve Kerr and the Warriors. His side is exhausted by a lot of disrespect in a lot of ways.”
Houston, We Have a Jonathan Kuminga Problem
Kuminga averaged 21.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists in four games against the Rockets this season. It’s Kuminga’s second-highest scoring average against any single opponent this season.
Whether that continues is on Kerr’s hands now as he maps out the team’s strategy to beat the No. 2 seed Rockets, who have given Stephen Curry nightmares this season.
The Rockets’ defense held Curry to just 16.3 points on 36.4% field goal shooting. During their last meeting, Oakland native Amen Thompson locked Curry up as the Rockets limited the Warriors’ superstar to only three points on a putrid 1-of-10 shooting.
The Warriors will need every firepower they can muster to try to overwhelm the Rockets’ stifling defense.
Will Kerr finally unleash Kuminga this time?
Play Like Jimmy and Iggy
According to Charania, the Warriors have asked Kuminga to play a new role after they acquired Jimmy Butler at the trade deadline. The Athletic reported a one-on-one meeting between Kerr and Kuminga in Orlando, showing him clips of Butler before the 22-year-old forward returned from injury.
Butler had played 88 out of the 101 minutes over the Warriors’ last two games as Kuminga watched from the bench. The six-time NBA All-Star showed Kuminga how it’s done with back-to-back 30-point games to help the Warriors clinch the No. 7 seed.
“Now he’s coming off a few months of an ankle injury and they have completely wanted him to change the way he’s playing,” Charania said of Kuminga. “He started the season with the ball in his hands, scoring. Now the Warriors want Jonathan Kuminga playing in the dunker spot. They want him slashing, cutting, and playing defensively. I think about a guy like Andre Igoudala. That’s kind of the guy that they want him to more or less play like.
“And so how do they optimize him because he’s really the piece that could take this team to a whole another level if they can figure out how to utilize him the right way.”
