{"id":839203,"date":"2026-09-19T20:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/839203\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T20:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:09:12","slug":"jonathan-kuminga-makes-claim-about-lakers-contract-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/839203\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Kuminga makes claim about Lakers contract offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jonathan Kuminga saga in free agency ran far longer than anyone anticipated. He didn\u2019t choose his team until late August, and had several suitors, including the Los Angeles Lakers. He ultimately landed on a two-year, $13 million deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves that gives him a starting role<\/a> and the ability to return to free agency next summer and land a bigger deal. <\/p>\n

All reports suggested that the Lakers were offering a deal<\/a> in the ballpark of three years, $36 million. That is significantly more than what he got from the Timberwolves, but would have locked him in for three seasons instead of one. Kuminga, though, is now suggesting that the Lakers never offered anything like that and that no extra money was turned down. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s talk a little bit about Kuminga. We got some clarification here,\u201d Darren Moore said on Ball in the Family podcast with Lonzo Ball<\/a>. \u201cKuminga actually DM\u2019d me, and so we can clear this up for everyone, I\u2019m going to read it verbatim. He said, \u2018Gang, I saw the interview, and I never turned down no bread. None of that had ever been offered.\u2019 From the source himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

This from Kuminga is counter to everything that\u2019s been reported about his free agency saga. The Lakers appeared to be courting Kuminga on a three-year sign-and-trade for the bulk of the offseason, so it seems unlikely that they never made any sort of formal offer. <\/p>\n

Regardless, seeing this from Kuminga adds even more fuel to the fire that missing out on him is a blessing in disguise. Kuminga will now play out the 2026-27 season with the Timberwolves on what is essentially an expiring deal, and will be looking for opportunities to earn himself big money in the long term. <\/p>\n

It still remains to be seen if Kuminga can play a role on a team, and the Lakers won\u2019t be the team to figure out if he can. <\/p>\n

Michael Porter Jr. doesn\u2019t believe in Lakers <\/p>\n

Continuing the tour of players on other teams talking about the Lakers, Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. gave his thoughts<\/a> on the new-look L.A. roster. <\/p>\n

He said that he doesn\u2019t believe that the Lakers have a championship-contending roster, echoing a similar sentiment from Chicago Bulls guard Norman Powell. Games still have to be played, and players are certainly just using the offseason to get headlines, but that feeling about the Lakers seems to be common. <\/p>\n

If you love our reporting, choose LakersNation.com as a preferred source on Google.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jonathan Kuminga saga in free agency ran far longer than anyone anticipated. He didn\u2019t choose his team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,677,867,150,6],"class_list":["post-839203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlantahawks","tag-basketball","tag-hawks","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117299522038349094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839203","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=839203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}