how well he played:<\/a><\/p>\nWhat an absolutely dynamic performance from Kuminga. He was the Warriors best player on Saturday and, were it not for a burst from Edwards in the fourth quarter, Kuminga would have been the best player in the game \u2026 and it would have been a game the Warriors won.<\/p>\n
He brought the right mentality. He was relentless attacking the rim, constantly looking to finish in the paint or draw contact. He only really took jump shots when it was late in the clock, or he was wide open. He made some really good passes, and he played an absolutely sensational defensive game.<\/p>\n
The Warriors season is on the line on Monday. Don\u2019t be surprised if Kuminga starts and plays 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
Grade: A+
Post-game bonus:\u00a0Best plus\/minus on the team.<\/p>\n
Now Kuminga literally can\u2019t get into the rotation.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what makes this story haunting: In five years, we\u2019re going to look back at Game 3 and it\u2019s going to mean one of two things.<\/p>\n
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Possibility One: The Receipt. Kuminga is averaging 24 and 8 for Charlotte in 2029. He\u2019s made two All-Star teams. Every time the Warriors visit, someone pulls up the Game 3 clip and asks why Golden State gave up on a 23-year-old who dropped 30 in the playoffs. The relationship after the 2022 championship went from hopeful to unsalvageable, forcing a trade to wherever Kuminga finally gets the developmental runway he needed. And everyone who watched Game 3 remembers thinking: \u201cHe can really do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Possibility Two: The Ghost. Game 3 was the outlier. The one perfect night where everything clicked, but never consistently. Kuminga bounces around the league averaging 12 points off benches in Memphis and Indiana. Game 3 becomes the sad story about unfulfilled potential, about a player with all the tools who could never put them together, who went 11-for-18 one night and 1-for-10 the next. In this version, the Warriors saw the inconsistency, the turnovers, the defensive lapses. Game 3 becomes the cruelest kind of memory: the reminder of what could have been if talent matched consistency.<\/p>\n
The tragedy is we won\u2019t know for years. Right now, on New Year\u2019s Eve 2025, with Kuminga out of the rotation entirely and the trade deadline approaching before winter turns to spring, we\u2019re living in the moment before the fork in the road becomes clear.<\/p>\n
Something broke between May 10 and now. Whether it was the player, the organization, or the fit between them, I don\u2019t know. But Game 3 sits there like evidence at a crime scene. Either Kuminga becomes an All-Star somewhere else and Game 3 becomes the receipt proving the Warriors gave up too soon, or he fades into a journeyman role and Game 3 becomes the beautiful lie we all wanted to believe.<\/p>\n
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Both possibilities hurt. Both feel possible. And that\u2019s the tragedy.<\/p>\n
OR HE DOESN\u2019T GO ANYWHERE AND HE STAYS BALLING WITH THE DUBS FOR ANOTHER RING.<\/p>\n
May 10, 2025. Jonathan Kuminga: 30 points, 11-of-18 shooting, 36 minutes of playoff basketball. Remember that game. Because in five years, it\u2019s either going to make you furious or make you sad, and right now we have no idea which. Happy New Year, Dub Nation ;).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As I review the most gold-blooded performances of the Golden State Warriors\u2019 2025 calendar year, you already knew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,113,867,2058,307,6,932,863,308,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-509583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-goldenstate","12":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","13":"tag-indiana","14":"tag-jonathan-kuminga","15":"tag-kendrick-perkins","16":"tag-minnesota","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-steph-curry","19":"tag-steve-kerr","20":"tag-timberwolves","21":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115819209259956742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}