{"id":597318,"date":"2026-02-11T19:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/597318\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:34:20","slug":"jonathan-kuminga-objected-to-steve-kerrs-jab-after-benching-nbc-bay-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/597318\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Kuminga objected to Steve Kerr\u2019s jab after benching \u2013 NBC Bay Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the\u00a0divorce between the Warriors and Jonathan\u00a0Kuminga<\/a>\u00a0has been\u00a0finalized, details about the rocky partnership are surfacing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Warriors’ 123-91 win over the Chicago Bulls on Dec. 7,\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0was\u00a0held out of coach Steve Kerr\u2019s rotation<\/a>\u00a0for the first time since returning from a knee injury.\u00a0The 23-year-old forward took offense to a perceived jab from his coach\u00a0in\u00a0Kerr’s\u00a0post-game media availability,\u00a0according to ESPN\u2019s Anthony Slater<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked about\u00a0Kuminga\u2019s\u00a0DNP at Chicago, Kerr told reporters after the game that \u201cit happens to everybody, pretty much, other than\u00a0the stars. Guys come in and out of the rotation depending on who\u2019s available, how the team\u2019s playing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kuminga\u00a0fielded questions with reporters in the locker room after the\u00a0game but\u00a0then spoke with Slater afterward\u00a0and questioned whether reporters asked Kerr about him.<\/p>\n

At that point, Slater confirmed to Kuminga that Kerr addressed the situation and played the coach’s comments for the young forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“See,”\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0said to Slater. “That’s the s–t I’m talking about.\u00a0Why’s\u00a0he\u00a0gotta\u00a0say that?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

It appears\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0took offense to Kerr\u00a0saying,\u00a0\u201cother than the stars,\u201d in particular.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when he spoke with reporters\u00a0before speaking with ESPN,\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0portray\u00a0animosity,\u00a0Slater notes in his article.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cKuminga\u00a0said he would accept it and stay ready. His relationship with Kerr was fine, he said,\u201d Slater writes. \u201cThose talking points\u00a0didn’t\u00a0necessarily\u00a0represent\u00a0how he felt in private.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few days later, Kerr\u00a0elaborated on his decision to hold\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0out<\/a>\u00a0during an interview with 95.7 The Game\u2019s \u201cWillard and Dibs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

“He has not played well lately, and that’s why I went away from him last game,” Kerr said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his four games after returning from his knee injury, Kuminga averaged 7.8 points on a very inefficient 30-percent shooting from the field. That included a start against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the night before\u00a0Kuminga\u2019s\u00a0DNP in Chicago,\u00a0in which\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0scored 4\u00a0points on 1-of-10 shooting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps Kerr\u00a0could have phrased his comments in\u00a0a different way. Nevertheless,\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0was never considered one of the Warriors\u2019\u00a0stars, and other options were explored by Kerr.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After his DNP in Chicago,\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0played in just three of 26 games before he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kerr recognized his own missteps in his relationship with\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0during the\u00a0forward\u2019s\u00a0tenure with Golden State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout going into too much detail, organizationally I think the right path for us, for him, it\u00a0was always tricky to navigate,\u201d Kerr told reporters after the trade, almost one week ago. \u201cWe all\u00a0share in\u00a0that,\u00a0myself\u00a0included.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not going to go into detail, but he was undoubtedly put in some tough spots coming to a championship\u00a0team\u00a0his rookie year and a team that was continuing to try and compete at the highest level and got here with\u00a0very little\u00a0experience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s\u00a0a tough thing to reconcile. I wish I had done a better job of making that happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that the split has been\u00a0finalized, both sides have a fresh start and can move forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that the\u00a0divorce between the Warriors and Jonathan\u00a0Kuminga\u00a0has been\u00a0finalized, details about the rocky partnership are surfacing.\u00a0 In the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,867,6,863,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-597318","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-jonathan-kuminga","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-steve-kerr","16":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116053677656638370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597318","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=597318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}