The stalemate between the Warriors and Jonathan Kuminga continues, with the restricted free agent forward reportedly eager for a fresh start with the Kings — but Golden State brass is uninterested in the compensation Sacramento has offered for a player the Warriors clearly believe still has value … even if it’s not to them.
ESPN reported last week Kuminga and his representatives had declined Golden State’s offers of a two-year, $45 million contract, due largely the Warriors structuring the deal with a team option for Year 2 and insisting — as Marc Stein has detailed — Kuminga waive the de facto no-trade clause he would receive as a player signing for one guaranteed season with a team that holds his Bird rights. That framework would grant the Warriors a significant amount of ongoing control over Kuminga’s future; the 22-year-old does not want to grant Golden State that kind of control, given the frustrations he has communicated over what he sees as years of inconsistent opportunities and stunted growth under head coach Steve Kerr.
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At this point, Kuminga wants a clean slate and a new role elsewhere. Like, for example, a couple of hours north at Golden 1 Center, where the Kings would love to slot the 6-foot-8 forward into their starting lineup, according to Marc J. Spears of Andscape:
The Kings are ready to pay Kuminga like a starter, too, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic — but the Warriors remain unmoved by the players-and-picks package Sacramento has offered to get Kuminga in-house:
As for the Kings, who last spoke with the Warriors earlier this week, team sources say they’ve offered a three-year, $63 million deal for Kuminga in a proposal that would send veteran guard Malik Monk and their 2030 first-round pick (lottery protected) to the Warriors (that deal would require the Warriors to move more salary elsewhere to stay under the first apron, likely Moses Moody or Buddy Hield). If that pick didn’t convey, then the Warriors would get the least favorable of the Kings’ or San Antonio’s first-round pick in 2031. Those protections have been the primary sticking point, team sources said, as the Warriors have insisted that the first-rounder be unprotected. Thus, the stalemate.
Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard also reports Golden State wouldn’t be interested in folding Hield (who made more 3-pointers last season than any Warrior save Stephen Curry) or Moody (who made a career-high 34 starts and played a key two-way role after the Warriors’ season-saving trade for Jimmy Butler) into a potential Kuminga deal. And if the Warriors aren’t getting the kind of picks they want … or the kind of young players they want … or the kind of contract structure they want … then, well, the nature of restricted free agency means they don’t have to do something they don’t want.;
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More from Kawakami:
The word I got when I checked in with a Warriors source on Sunday: Kuminga won’t be traded this summer. He’ll be back on the Warriors’ roster to start the season. And it’ll either come when he signs the Warriors’ offer or accepts the $7.9 million one-year qualifying offer.
Now, of course, we all can read some or most of this as Warriors positioning in lieu of making a final push for a more favorable sign-and-trade agreement. The Warriors have definitely had some discussions with other teams about Kuminga. And once you start having discussions, you can always finish one of them, no matter what your public stance happens to be at the time.
But several sources have indicated that the Warriors have been unenthusiastic about the general idea of a Kuminga sign-and-trade from the outset. The broad context is that [Warriors owner] Joe Lacob remains a fan of Kuminga’s and is determined to either keep the 22-year-old on the roster or get real value in return. And he’s willing to wait it out.
The Warriors’ willingness to wait means Kuminga has to play the waiting game, too … and, as a result, play fewer actual games. Stein reports Kuminga’s not expected to play for his native Congo in this summer’s FIBA AfroBasket tournament, slated to tip off Aug. 12, as he looks to mitigate injury risk with his contract status still up in the air.
We know, then, we won’t see Kuminga on the floor before NBA teams reconvene for training camp this fall. Which camp he’ll be reporting to, what kind of deal he’ll be playing on, and how he feels about it all, though, very much remain to be determined.
