Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is not closing the door on Jonathan Kuminga‘s return to his rotation.
Kerr has refuted the reports that portrayed Kuminga as disengaged from the team after he removed him from the rotation.
“Jonathan [Kuminga] has been fantastic,” Kerr said on 95.7 The Game’s “Willard and Dibs” show ahead of Wednesday’s Game 2 against the Houston Rockets. “His attitude, his energy on the bench, cheering guys on, staying ready. He’s a great, great young guy. This has been tough on him, but he’s doing exactly what he should be doing, which is staying ready.
“I’ve told him, and our coaches have told him, things can change in a heartbeat in the NBA. He’s got to just be ready for when his time comes, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. I would be surprised if, at some point, his time doesn’t come.
“When you’re in a good groove, you just keep doing what you’re doing and then you adjust as you go.”
The Reason Behind Jonathan Kuminga’s Demotion
Kuminga has not played in the Warriors’ last three games. They won two of those games — their 121-116 play-in win against the Memphis Grizzlies that sealed the No. 7 seed and their 95-85 Game 1 win versus the No. 2 Rockets.
Kerr has heavily leaned on Jimmy Butler, playing him an average of 43.3 minutes, in the three games he benched Kuminga.
“Every game is different and I think Jimmy’s arrival took away a lot of Jonathan’s minutes at the four,” Kerr said on 95.7 The Game’s “Willard and Dibs” show on April 10.
“There’s no doubt that as soon as Jimmy arrived and we started winning, we leaned into the lineup combinations that enhanced Jimmy because we were winning and Jonathan was out for that whole stretch. We went like 17 and 3 or something, so we’re going to keep doing what’s been winning.”
Then Kerr dropped the hammer on Kuminga.
“But the lineup with Jimmy, Jonathan and Draymond [Green] doesn’t fit really well, frankly. It just doesn’t,” Kerr admitted. “We need more spacing. We’ve found other lineups that have clicked, and this is just part of the deal, being in the NBA, and you’ve got to adapt to whatever’s happening with the team.”
Jonathan Kuminga’s Camp ‘Exhausted’
On April 16, ESPN’s NBA insider Shams Charania reported that Kuminga’s camp is “exhausted” by the disrespect after his latest benching.
“They need him in this series because you think about the athletes that Houston has,” Charania said of Kuminga on the “NBA Today” on April 16. “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.”
Kuminga will become a restricted free agent this summer after he and the Warriors failed to agree on an extension before the season.
‘Ghost Around the Team’
After his demotion, Tim Kawakami of The San Francisco Standard reported that Kuminga has been a “ghost” ever since.
“Not surprisingly, Kuminga’s presence also has diminished in the locker room, which he’s exited swiftly without speaking to reporters for the last week, and the seats on bench, which he’s rarely used lately, preferring to spend his time among other players in the tunnel to the locker room during games. Other than his postgame shooting session on the Chase Center court long after Sunday’s game, Kuminga’s basically been a ghost around the team — there, but barely seen, not listened to, and definitely not counted on,” Kawakami wrote on April 17.
Bay Area News Group reporters Joseph Dycus and Dieter Kurtenbach also reported that Kuminga only joined the team on the bench in the Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers games more than a minute after tip-off.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst also wondered whether Kuminga was even dressed to play in the play-in game in Memphis.
“Kuminga last night — I wasn’t there, so I don’t know — I’m not sure he had his uniform on,” Windhorst said on “First Take” on April 16, following the Warriors’ play-in win in Memphis. “I’m not kidding. I think he didn’t have his uniform top on because he had clearly been told he wasn’t going to play.”
