{"id":625250,"date":"2026-02-26T03:25:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T03:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625250\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T03:25:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T03:25:45","slug":"hawks-coach-opens-up-on-jonathan-kumingas-standout-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625250\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawks Coach Opens up on Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s Standout Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

At last, the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> landed an opportunity to roll out their trade deadline pickup, Jonathan Kuminga.<\/p>\n

The Hawks hosted the Washington Wizards on February 24, hoping to improve to 29-31 on the season.<\/p>\n

The game had plenty of emotions attached, considering the Hawks were facing the team that took on their former franchise player in Trae Young, but the Kuminga debut certainly added plenty of excitement on the night.<\/p>\n

Kuminga didn\u2019t land an opportunity to start. Seeing as though he\u2019s joining the team late in the year, he\u2019s taking on a bench role for the time being. It\u2019s unclear if that could change in the near future.<\/p>\n

The veteran forward checked in for 24 minutes. During that time, he shot 9-12 from the field and 3-4 from beyond the arc. Kuminga produced 27 points on the night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Beyond the scoring, Kuminga produced four assists to just two turnovers and collected two steals. He finished his first Hawks game as a plus-16.<\/p>\n

Following the game, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder assessed Kuminga\u2019s display in his first set of action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that we\u2019ve talked about as a team, clearly it was a focal point for him,\u201d Snyder told reporters<\/a>. \u201cOur playing with the pass is, as you\u2019ve heard me say it since October, and he really demonstrated that right away. Even to the point where it\u2019s okay to shoot, too. He let himself get in the game. Got connected with his teammates and just let the game come to him. I think that shows a lot of maturity on his part and shows a lot of kind of how he feels about the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too early to tell if the Hawks got a steal at the 2026 trade deadline or not, but they are justified in thinking so early on, based on Kuminga\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old forward comes from the Golden State Warriors, where he started his NBA<\/a> career in 2021. At the time, Kuminga was a seventh-overall pick for a team that would go on to win the NBA Finals during his rookie season.<\/p>\n

As a rookie, Kuminga played an important reserve role for Golden State. The fact that he played 70 games, plus 16 postseason outings amid a title-winning year, is a major plus for any hopeful contender.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Although Kuminga fell out of favor with the Warriors, getting left out of the rotation for much of the 2025-2026 season before the trade, he still carries 278 games of experience with him. Kuminga averaged 12.5 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game, while shooting 50 percent from the field throughout his Warriors tenure.<\/p>\n

The Hawks swapped out the veteran center Kristaps Porzingis for Kuminga on February 5. Atlanta added Kuminga\u2019s $23.7 million salary for the 2025-2026 season.<\/p>\n

They have a team option to decide on before the deadline in late June. If the Hawks want to lock in another year with Kuminga, it would cost $24.3 million. This upcoming stretch will help the Hawks figure it all out. So far, the run is off to a good start.<\/p>\n

For all the latest\u00a0NBA\u00a0<\/a>news and rumors, head over to\u00a0Newsweek Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At last, the Atlanta Hawks landed an opportunity to roll out their trade deadline pickup, Jonathan Kuminga. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,677,867,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-625250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-atlantahawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-hawks","13":"tag-jonathan-kuminga","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116134804394386867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625250","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=625250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}