{"id":539039,"date":"2026-01-15T20:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/539039\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:08:12","slug":"nba-insider-reveals-warriors-coach-steve-kerr-wanted-to-pick-224-million-22-7-ppg-forward-over-jonathan-kuminga-in-2021-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/539039\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA insider reveals Warriors coach Steve Kerr wanted to pick $224 million 22.7 PPG forward over Jonathan Kuminga in 2021 NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA insider reveals Warriors coach Steve Kerr wanted to pick $224 million 22.7 PPG forward over Jonathan Kuminga in 2021 NBA Draft<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the first day of his trade eligibility, Golden State Warriors<\/a> star forward Jonathan Kuminga asked for a trade<\/a>. It seems his misuse in Golden State\u2019s gameplan has finally made him done with the organization, and want out.<\/p>\n

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Ironically, though, this pairing of Kuminga and the Warriors may have never happened if head coach Steve Kerr and a couple of others in the organization got their way. According to The Athletic\u2019s M. Thompson II, S. Amick and N. Friedell<\/a>, Kerr and the others wanted to draft Orlando Magic<\/a> star forward Franz Wagner over Kuminga.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTeam sources confirmed that some in the organization, including Kerr, wanted Franz Wagner, but the German big man would go eighth to Orlando in the end. In a push to inject the Warriors\u2019 roster with much-needed athleticism and potential starpower, Kuminga was drafted as part of the foundation of the post-Curry era along with Wiseman,\u201d Thompson et al wrote.<\/p>\n

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Going by career averages, Wagner is the better player. He\u2019s averaged 22.7 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and a steal per game. As for Kuminga, he\u2019s averaged 12.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game over his career.<\/p>\n

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However, this difference can be attributed to the fact that he was misused in the Warriors’ offense. Where he ends up next will tell if he was the better player than Wagner.<\/p>\n

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It will be interesting to see where Kuminga goes, and hopefully, he can find success, and the Warriors get a good return for him.<\/p>\n

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Magic predicted to part ways with $240 million All-Star forward, hand keys to the team to Franz Wagner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA insider reveals Warriors coach Steve Kerr wanted to pick $224 million 22.7 PPG forward over Jonathan Kuminga…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,3111,2292,403,164,294,178,867,6,12,76,863,26793],"class_list":["post-539039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-blockbuster-trade","tag-devin-booker","tag-franz-wagner","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-grizzlies","tag-ja-morant","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-orlando-magic","tag-steve-kerr","tag-wiseman"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115900927461761810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539039","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=539039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}