Warriors’ Urged to Take Rarely Used Route With Kuminga’s Free Agency

Jonathan Kuminga‘s future will be an important decision for the Golden State Warriors this summer. He is heading into restricted free agency. However, any interested team would need to navigate what projects as a complicated sign-and-trade deal.

Rather than re-signing Kuminga to a new long-term contract, Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale has proposed a short-term solution. Favale suggested that Kuminga signs his qualifying offer, giving the Warriors a one-year window to find a willing trade partner before he hits unrestricted free agency next summer. It is rare for a top free agent to sign their qualifying offer, though.

“My confidence meter on this one isn’t especially high,” Favale wrote. “But we haven’t seen a marquee restricted free agent with a case to sign his qualifying offer for purely basketball reasons since Greg Monroe…in 2014…Preserving Kuminga as an asset is the Golden State Warriors’ top priority. That demands they broker a sign-and-trade or keep him, perhaps with the intent to flip him later. But the Base Year Compensation rule complicates any sign-and-trade that doesn’t send him to the Brooklyn Nets, and the Warriors must be careful not to offer him a deal that ages into a net-negative.”

Kuminga has struggled to cement himself in Steve Kerr’s rotation. It’s best for everybody involved if he moves on at the earliest opportunity. However, the Warriors won’t accept a low-ball trade offer. Kuminga is still a high-potential prospect, and as such, will have a significant price tag.

Miami Heat Could Trade for Kuminga

In a June 19 edition of the Stein Line Newsletter, Jake Fischer and Marc Stein reported that the Miami Heat could turn their attention toward Kuminga if they missed out on Kevin Durant.

“Maybe Miami, for example, would make a sign-and-trade run at Kuminga in the event that the Heat don’t win the trade race to acquire the league’s No. 8 all-time leading scorer. Sources say Miami has registered a level of interest in Kuminga in previous transaction cycles,” Stein and Fischer wrote.

On Sunday, June 22, Durant was traded to the Phoenix Suns. Therefore, the Heat could view Kuminga as a potential target to help improve the team’s fortunes. However, there’s currently no reported framework on how a trade between the two teams could look.

Warriors Can’t Give Kuminga a Consistent Role

In a May 21 appearance on “The TK Show” podcast with Tim Kawakami of The Athletic, Kerr detailed the difficulty in finding a consistent role for Kuminga.

“It’s a tricky one because Jonathan obviously is gifted and wants to play a bigger role and wants to play more,” Kerr said. “And, I’ve been asked to win. Right now, he’s not a guy who I can say that I’m going to play 38 minutes with the roster that we have…Doesn’t mean he’s not a really good player. Doesn’t mean he’s not talented. It just means the fit. And with the roster that we have, it’s tricky…We can talk about spacing, usage rate, and all that stuff. But the game is about puzzle fitting. It’s about five guys complimenting one another at both ends of the floor. So all I do is, you know, I try to win.”

Perhaps the best course of action is for Kuminga to follow Favale’s advice. Opting into his qualifying offer would ease the friction of a potential trade, either this summer or at the trade deadline. Furthermore, it would mean Kuminga could potentially increase his earning potential next summer, if he has a strong 2025-26 season.

Whether the Warriors are willing to roll the dice like that, will remain to be seen.