Jonathan Kuminga wants to be somewhere he is given a legitimate chance to shine. Right now he’s a power forward on a team that already has Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler, a team coached by Steve Kerr, who has never fully trusted him. The Golden State Warriors want a Kuminga contract that is primarily a trade chip, with a team option on the final season. Kuminga doesn’t want to have his fate in the hands of a fickle trade market.
Which is why there remains a stalemate on a new Kuminga contract despite the Warriors increasing their offer to three years, $75.2 million, with a team option on the final year, reports Shams Charania and Anthony Slater at ESPN. That team option makes this a much more tradable contract. Even though the new offer would guarantee $48.3 million for Kuminga over the next two years — literally doubling how much money he has made in the NBA over his first four years — what Kuminga wants most is an opportunity. Something he has felt he never really got a fair chance at under Kerr. That’s why one of Kuminga’s counteroffers was the same contract, but with a player option in the final year.
All that boiled over and led to this exchange between Kuminga and Warriors owner Joe Lacob, ESPN reports.
But there was an underlying question from the Lacob side that felt most pressing. “Do you want to be here?”…
So Kuminga turned the question back on Lacob and the Warriors. “Do you even want me here?”
What Kuminga’s camp wanted was a sign-and-trade this summer, but the offers that came in were not enough for Golden State. For example, Sacramento reportedly offered Dario Saric, Devin Carter and a lottery-protected first-round pick (some rumors suggest Malik Monk was the player to go with the pick). Phoenix made an offer as well that didn’t include a first-rounder. What Kuminga liked about both of those situations was less about the money — which was close per year to what the Warriors just offered — and more that it was a three- or four-year contract with a player option, and both teams were going to make him their starting four.
Kuminga’s leverage in negotiations with the Warriors is that he could follow the route Cam Thomas took in Brooklyn, sign the one-year qualifying offer at $7.8 million, which gives him a no trade clause for this season (which he could waive for the right deal) and would make him an unrestricted free agent next summer when half-a-dozen teams or more will have cap space to sign free agents. Kuminga’s agent reportedly made a “souped-up” qualifying offer proposal, where Kuminga gets more than the $8 million but on a very tradable one-year contract. The Warriors don’t like that because of the risk he could walk away at the end of the season for nothing if no trade is found.
Kuminga, 22, averaged 15.3 points and 4.6 rebounds in 47 games last season (he missed time with an ankle injury).
The Warriors remain in a holding pattern while the Kuminga situation plays out. Golden State has agreements in place to sign Al Horford at the taxpayer mid-level exception, then sign some combination of De’Anthony Melton, Gary Payton II and Seth Curry at the veteran minimum. To do that, the Warriors (hard-capped at the second apron) can’t offer Kuminga more than $22.5 million for the first year of his contract. At that price, he’s not going to accept the team option on the final season.
So the Warriors remain stuck, trying to work out something with Kuminga before the Oct. 1 deadline when he would just take the qualifying offer.
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