SAN FRANCISCO – At the annual event when the NBA reintroduces itself to the world, as the Warriors did on Monday, it is incredibly difficult for a reserve player to overshadow three teammates destined for the Hall of Fame.
It ought to be impossible when that reserve is not even in the building.
Yet that’s how it played out at Chase Center. To the podium strode Stephen Curry, four-time NBA champion and one of the top 10 players in NBA history. Then came Draymond Green, four-time All-Star and a binding ingredient to those four championships. Then came Jimmy Butler, six-time All-Star making his Golden State training camp debut.
Jonathan Kuminga, reserve forward, was nowhere and everywhere.
“As leaders on the team, you have to acknowledge what’s going on and don’t make it more than what it is other than a team trying to figure out the situation that’s front of us and the challenge that’s front of us,” Curry said. “Knowing JK’s situation, knowing the new faces that we’re adding to the roster, we talk about it every year going into a training camp what it’s going to take for that particular team to win.
“This is a little different because you have a guy that’s trying to figure out his situation, and we respect that process. It’s going to play out, and when he’s here, ready to work, like we expect him to be locked in on doing what he needs to do to help us win.”
Green, co-leader of the Kuminga cheerleading camp – along with Golden State CEO Joe Lacob – more directly addressed the absence of the 22-year-old forward whose contract status has been in limbo since July.
“Any time a teammate’s not here, it sucks,” Green said. “And, obviously, not having multiple [teammates] here due to the situation, is unfortunate. Media Day marks the start of something. It marks the start of another NBA season.”
The Warriors are starting training camp with at least four roster spots unfilled. There were five vacancies before Gary Payton II re-signed Monday morning. There will be two when Al Horford and De’Anthony Melton, both of whom have agreements in place, sign contracts sometime this week. Seth Curry remains a possible addition.
Kuminga’s absence hovered like a cloud above the usually upbeat Media Day proceedings. It begat the absences of Horford, Melton and, possibly, Seth Curry. None were available as Warriors because none officially are on the roster, which vetoed Curry, Green and Butler from making specific references to them.
“If we’re talking about a guy like that, he’s won it, which I really, really respect,” Butler, speaking hypothetically, said of Horford. “And he’s been in this league for a long time for a reason. Elite defender. Can make shots. Plays basketball the right way. Super smart. More than anything, he wins.
“So, wherever that guy ends up, I know he’s going to help that team.”
Horford will end up with the Warriors. Just not yet. Same with Melton and, again, possibly Seth Curry.
This Golden State embargo is an unintended consequence of Kuminga’s contract status going unresolved through July, August and deep into September. All involved parties are inhibited – and will be until Warriors-Kuminga business is settled. The deadline for the qualifying offer – which would please neither side – is Wednesday.
“Like I tell everybody that asks me, not [only] in the media, but random people, and my friends: I’m not into all that,” Butler said. “I hope it gets resolved.”
It is, in many ways, downright astonishing that all of this revolves around someone who projects to come off the bench for the Warriors. The starting forwards are Green and Butler. The starting center will be Horford. The starting guards will be Stephen Curry and perhaps a name coach Steve Kerr picks from a hat.
The game plan of Kuminga and his agent, the intrepid Aaron Turner, is perhaps the most audacious in American professional sports. Has the contract status of a reserve, no matter the sport, ever spent an entire offseason at or near the top of a league’s news cycle? How often does reserve, no matter how talented, hold the key to a franchise completing its roster?
This months-long saga doesn’t quite match the stunning temerity Ben Simmons displayed in ghosting the overtures of the New York Knicks – a troubling indication of uninterest – but it leaves even more observers wondering where this standoff is headed.
There is tremendous potential for an enormous downside, as this summer of irresolution has laid the groundwork for an unimaginably heavy burden on Kuminga. No matter the jersey he wears, he must be spectacularly good for this to make sense.
The Warriors, at least publicly, hope it’s their team.
“Some things are pretty straightforward, some things aren’t,” Stephen Curry said. “This is definitely in the ‘aren’t’ category.
“But when he comes and he’s here, he should be a professional and do exactly what he expects to do and take advantage of his opportunities to help us win. Everybody who is in the locker room, that’s what you’re committed to do. I don’t have any concerns that he’ll approach it that way, and that’s what we expect.”
Kuminga’s status is the last thing Curry or Green or Butler hoped to address. They had no choice. They were available, and Kuminga’s absence was louder by comparison.
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