The Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga saga has entered its final, inevitable chapter

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Thursday, January 15 was a holiday in Warriors land, just not the same for everyone. It was Christmas morning for some, Groundhog Day for others. 

Jonathan Kuminga officially became trade-eligible, kicking off a three-week window of anticipation for him and his camp about his future. His fate, conversely, wasn’t any different after the clock struck midnight than it was before. 

He’s still out of Steve Kerr’s rotation and isn’t expected to play another minute for the Warriors in the immediate future. His teammates still like him. The Warriors, as expected, didn’t have a trade lined up to ship him away immediately. Multiple teams have expressed interest. Some popular potential suitors, like the Nets, don’t appear as feasible as they may to the online community. There’s a slim, but non-zero chance the Warriors don’t find a trade for Kuminga and end up keeping him through the Feb. 5 deadline. 

He’s still the franchise’s final holdover from the Two Timelines era, their last young asset who could get cashed in for immediate help. And he’s still generating outsized attention for his production levels. 

Kuminga participated in morning shootaround at Chase Center, at which he had a conversation with Kerr (the head coach kept details of the dialogue private). Then he collected dust on the bench as the Warriors (23-19) took advantage of the Jalen Brunson-less Knicks in a 126-113 win. It was Golden State’s 10th victory in its past 14 games, each of which has come without Kuminga.

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“Our relationship is fine,” Kerr said pregame. “It is what it is, difficult situation for everybody. You know, part of this league, part of the job. We just keep moving forward. Tough situation, I don’t really have much to add.” 

Kerr, Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green each insisted that this round of Kuminga trade chatter won’t be a distraction for the team. The Warriors don’t plan on a drastic measure like sending Kuminga home. There’s no reason to expect the upcoming weeks to have significantly more drama or choppiness because, well, they’re not all that dissimilar to much of the past few years. 

“I will keep coaching him,” Kerr said. “He’ll be part of the team, he’ll be here. It is what it is.” 

The difficult situation Kuminga and the Warriors find themselves in is one involving inertia and organizational dissent. It has left Kuminga without a role to play and the team with little leverage in trade talks. The 23-year-old wing has played just one game since Dec. 7, registering DNP after DNP. Everyone in the league knows the Warriors have an imperative to trade him for a player who can help their veterans, meaning the league can sense their desperation. 

The steps that took Kuminga and the Warriors to this point are a spiral staircase of miscalculations. Any number of decisions could have avoided this ineffable holding pattern. 

On draft night in 2021, the Warriors could’ve selected a different player with the seventh overall, perhaps a better scheme fit like Franz Wagner. They could’ve traded the pick, too. 

The Warriors won the title in Kuminga’s rookie year, allowing them to tout their plan of contending now and building for the future. Then any time Kuminga flashed star potential, the organization seemed to take a victory lap. But Kuminga never completely committed to consistently defending and rebounding, instead seeking an on-ball scoring role that didn’t necessarily jive with Golden State’s free-flowing system around Curry. 

When that cycle began repeating itself, the Warriors could’ve traded Kuminga for any number of players who have switched teams in the past few years. Or, if they were intent on keeping and developing him, Kerr could have tilted his system more toward Kuminga in certain situations. He could’ve let him play through more mistakes instead of benching him. Expressed more belief in him with his actions. 

This past summer, during restricted free agency negotiations, no other teams gave Kuminga an offer sheet. The Warriors could have flipped him in a sign-and-trade, either to Sacramento or Phoenix. They didn’t deem those trade packages worthy. Kuminga could have signed the qualifying offer, taking matters into his own hands and guaranteeing himself a free agency period at season’s end and a full season with the Warriors. 

Instead, Kuminga and the Warriors agreed to a one-plus-one contract worth $22.5 million this season that was designed to be as tradeable as possible. Even when the two sides finally saw eye to eye, they did so with a trade looming in the background. 

Those are the paths not traveled. The road the Warriors took is reaching a dead end. 

“I desire to see him reach his full potential,” Draymond Green said. 

“Wherever that is in this league, it’s not always how we envision it. I’ve been so lucky and fortunate to play in one place for 14 years. How rare is that, though? And so, the reality is, it’s more likely it happens the opposite way than the way it’s gone for myself. Or Steph. Or Klay. 13, 14 years in one spot. So, for a guy like that who’s drafted with the seventh pick, you expect it all to go the way you want it to go, the way you think it should go. And sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. But that doesn’t make him any worse of a player, that doesn’t make this any worse of an organization. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”