Aaron Turner’s 6-year-old son, Jaxson, is asking the same question on a daily basis as everybody when it comes to Warriors restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga: “Have we got a deal done?”
The answer remains the same: No deal.
More than two and a half months have passed since the opening of NBA free agency and Kuminga’s agent, Turner, hasn’t been able to come to terms with the Warriors and general manager Mike Dunleavy. As first reported by ESPN’s Anthony Slater and Shams Charania, and later confirmed by NBC Sports Bay Area, the Warriors currently have three contract offers on the table for Kuminga: Three years and $75.2 million with a team option on the third season, two years and $45 million with a team option on the second season, and three years for $54 million without any options.
Kuminga so far has turned down all three deals. The reason isn’t so much money in a closed market that didn’t have any teams with proper salary cap space. His request is turning the team option into a player option and he’ll sign the contract.
The last and final avenue is the qualifying offer. Kuminga has until Oct. 1 to sign a one-year, $7.9 million qualifying offer. Signing the qualifying offer would essentially be turning down over $40 million in guaranteed money from the Warriors’ highest offer, but it also would help Kuminga, who turns 23 on Oct. 6, control his destiny. He would be an unrestricted free agent next summer and assuredly wouldn’t be traded during this upcoming season.
Understanding the risks of the qualifying offer, Turner and Kuminga are confident multiple teams with more cap space next summer would line up to sign him after such an unprecedented offseason.
“There are teams salivating that JK takes this QO,” Turner says.
Signing the qualifying offer is a very real possibility, though Turner told NBC Sports Bay Area on the latest episode of Dubs Talk that doing so isn’t a desired outcome. If the team option doesn’t turn into a player option, will Kuminga be signing the qualifying offer?
“I mean, I hope not,” Turner said. “I don’t think JK wants that. I don’t think the Warriors want that. Hopefully we figure this out and come to a middle ground that makes sense for everybody and everybody can put their best foot forward.
“We don’t need all these distractions. … I’m not blaming anybody, but you’ve got to get everybody on the same page going into the year. I think it’s vital for everyone’s sake. I know JK wants that. I hope the Warriors want that. I would think they’d want that. Hopefully we get something done.”
The Warriors are yet to include a player option on any contract they have offered Kuminga.
Kuminga joined Turner at the end of his interview Friday with 95.7 The Game’s “Steiny & Guru” and had his agent relay a message to Warriors fans of “I love you guys.”
“He loves the fans, he’d love to stay and be part of it,” Turner says. “Just because he gets a player option, it’s not like he’s leaving necessarily. Everybody is like, ‘Oh, he’s gone.’ Why? You have his Bird Rights, you’re the Warriors, what a platform. But he’d have some say and it would be because he wanted to stay.
“It’s been a long summer. We’re all tired, but we’re continuing to push through and hopefully we find a solution and cooler heads prevail.”
While the Warriors have offered more money on a yearly basis, Kuminga received larger contract offers from the Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns, both of which featured player options. The Kings and Suns, according to Turner, also have promised more of a basketball investment into Kuminga than the Warriors have through his first four years and in regards to the 2025-26 NBA season with their current roster construction.
Both the Kings and Suns, Turner says, would have fulfilled Kuminga’s goal of a larger role, starting and closing games. The same can’t be said for the Warriors following last season’s trade of Jimmy Butler.
None of the six players taken ahead of Kuminga in the 2021 NBA Draft have won a championship like he did as a rookie. None of them have played with multiple futuqualre Hall of Fame players. All of them have received larger opportunities, more leeway to make mistakes and have signed contracts of at least $100 million.
That’s part of why the player option matters so much to Kuminga. He believes the combination of his fluctuating role his first four seasons, along with the present and future of how he fits the Warriors, and being seen purely as a midseason trade asset deserves the good will of a player option.
“The theory on this has been from the beginning, if we’re going to take a number that keeps the team under the second apron and what matters most is the win-now and maximizing Steph [Curry’s] window and building a roster, fine. That’s great, we will fall in line,” Turner said. “But allow us to have the back end of the deal. JK can still stay on the Warriors. There’s nothing that says he couldn’t. They’ll have his Bird Rights. But it’s his choice.
“And if you believe in yourself, a player option is very, very, very valuable. It’s almost an insurance policy as opposed to having to pick it up. It’s a way to create flexibility. … That’s our theory. Give us the back end for the sacrifices up front of not being able to really chase his personal ambitions and fully expand his game, possibly getting traded in three months and just the back and forth of this for years.”
The desire is a player option. The threat is signing a qualifying offer. The team option isn’t fully off the table for Kuminga and Turner, too. Turner has even presented hybrid options as well.
“We’re not opposed to a team option,” Turner said. “A team option has been discussed and we’d be open to it, but then our theory and thinking is to just move the number up on the front end then. I get it, that’s difficult, you might have to make some tough choices but then you have the back end of the deal. I’ve also talked about hybrid deals. Inherently that 1+1 deal you lose your Bird Rights if you get traded. It has an inherent no-trade clause on the first year of it. Let him keep that.
“Where would that put us? It’s in the same place we’re at right now, but you’re not in the base compensation rule and JK has a seat at the table. I think if you’re JK you have to think about this: He’s been in the same place for four years and the runway has never really been cleared. So he’s looking at it like, ‘Man, I want to make sure the next place I go there’s a runway. There’s a real clear, very defined plan. I don’t want to just get tossed to another team where I don’t really know what the plan is.’ I don’t fault him for that. It’s a fair ask on his part.
“Those are the deals, that’s why the PO means so much in this certain negotiation.”
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