After sitting out the final 18 minutes of Thursday night’s loss to the Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga has lost confidence in coach Steve Kerr, and the 2021 lottery pick no longer believes Kerr can help him reach his full potential. Will allow access, close sources tell Kuminga athleticAdding another layer of turmoil to an already complicated Warriors season.
“(Thursday night) was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” one of the sources said.
Kuminga had another strong performance Thursday night with 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting, four rebounds and four assists and had a team-high plus-6 in just 19 minutes of action — a continuing trend for the 6-foot-7 wing. The athleticism and ever-increasing shot-making is serving as a catalyst for a Warriors team that is desperate for the rim pressure and youth he provides.
He converted an and-1 finish with six minutes remaining in the third quarter and Kerr fouled him out of the game along with Klay Thompson and Kevon Looney 12 seconds later. While Thompson returned to start the fourth inning and Looney came back on with just under eight minutes remaining, Kuminga did not.
“He was playing great,” Kerr said of Kuminga after the game. “His normal time to get back (in the fourth) would have been about five, six minutes. (Andrew Wiggins) was playing great, we were on the rise, up 18, 19, whatever. So we just stayed with him. Then at that (later) point, it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. He remained sitting for some time. So I stayed with the group that was there, and obviously, we couldn’t turn it off.
When the Warriors took Kuminga out of the game, they were trailing 85–84. To end the third quarter, the group that included Wiggins and did not include Kuminga helped build a 13-point lead that turned into an 18-point lead with six minutes remaining in the fourth. Kerr never got back to Kuminga and the Warriors chipped away at that lead, turning at least an 18-point cushion into a loss for the fourth time this season.
Kuminga and Wiggins are the Warriors’ two biggest wings — and they have the best theoretical chance to shore up a weak perimeter defense that has seen the 16-18 Warriors fall to 20th in defensive rating.
But they have not worked together. In 131 minutes, Kuminga and Wiggins together have a cumulative minus 66. Kuminga replaced Wiggins in the starting lineup 11 games ago, but despite performing well, Kuminga received fewer minutes than expected due to Wiggins’ continued involvement in the rotation.
“Obviously, their numbers don’t look good together,” Kerr said late last month. “They are very unnecessary. So the tape and numbers haven’t been great. But we also believe that we have a level that we need to get to to really compete at the highest level. And if those two guys can stay together on the field, it gives us advanced athleticism and advanced ability. But we have to find the right combination of people around both of them.
This problem is from last season onwards. Kuminga was a key part of the Warriors’ climb up to the sixth seed over the past two months, while Wiggins was away from the team due to a personal matter. But when Wiggins returned for the first game of the playoffs, Kuminga faded from the rotation.
Now that is not the case. Kuminga has worked his way into a larger part of the picture – he has played in every game he has been active in this season – but he still finds himself watching from the sidelines during some key moments of the season. This included Christmas when he was benched for the final three minutes of a loss in Denver and expressed some confusion for our Marcus Thompson postgame.
“Sometimes, I come out of the game not knowing what I did,” Kuminga said. “And it messes with my head. It’s like, ‘What do they want me to do?’ “I can pass and I can do different things-.”
Now, with the lack of trust from player to coach evident, Kuminga and Kerr are a poor partnership for two guys who Golden State needs to co-exist for the future.
The 21-year-old Kuminga, selected 7th overall in the 2021 NBA Draft, has begun to blossom with increased opportunities this season. Kerr made Kuminga the full-time starter on December 14 against the LA Clippers following Draymond Green’s indefinite suspension. In those 11 starts, Kuminga has averaged 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists while shooting 56.6 percent from the field in 25.5 minutes per game. Additionally, he has scored double-digit points in his last 14 games.
The frontcourt rotation mix will only become more crowded and complicated if Green returns from his suspension relatively soon. The February 8th trade deadline is a month away, and this faltering Warriors team must decide how to move forward with an expensive roster that is currently not fulfilling.
essential reading
to get bounceA daily NBA newsletter zack Harper and shamans Charaniya, every morning in your inbox. Signal Above Here,
(Photo: Theron W. Henderson/Getty Images)
