Jonathan Kuminga Signs With Minnesota: What His Agent’s Wild Warriors Comments Really Mean
Jonathan Kuminga is a Minnesota Timberwolf. That is the ending to a summer-long negotiation between Kuminga’s camp and the Golden State Warriors that turned into one of the strangest free agency stories of 2026.
The final terms: two years, $13 million, with a player option. That is not a superstar contract. That is not even close to what Kuminga was reportedly asking for from Golden State. His agent, Aaron Turner, called it “the weirdest negotiation of all time” during radio appearances this week.
Let’s back up. Kuminga rejected a three-year, $75 million offer from the Warriors last year. The first two seasons of that deal were worth about $48 million guaranteed. He would be making roughly $24 million right now if he had signed it.
Instead, Turner spent the summer telling anyone who would listen that Kuminga was worth more. There were reports of a five-year, $150 million offer that Turner has since denied. There were reports of Kuminga wanting to be a starter somewhere. There were reports of him being unhappy with his fit under Steve Kerr.
All of it turned into a two-year, $13 million deal with the Timberwolves.
The math is brutal. Kuminga will make less over two seasons than he would have made in one year of the Warriors’ offer. His agent’s decision to hold out for more turned into significantly less. That is what the analysts calling this “complete malpractice” are pointing to.
Turner has stayed defiant. He has been on multiple radio shows and podcasts insisting that there is a plan and that Kuminga is going to prove his worth in Minnesota. That is possible, but the market has spoken pretty clearly. Kuminga’s ceiling is not what his camp thought it was.
For the Timberwolves, this is a low-risk swing. Kuminga is still only 23 years old. He has real athletic tools and moments of dominant play. If he figures it out under Chris Finch, the Wolves get a talented wing at a bargain rate. If he does not, they walk away after two years.
Minnesota needs the depth. Anthony Edwards is a top-10 player. Jaden McDaniels is a good two-way wing. Rudy Gobert is still elite defensively. But the roster has holes and needs contributors on team-friendly deals. Kuminga fits the bill.
The Warriors are the real loser here. They developed Kuminga for four seasons, watched him grow into a rotation player, and are now getting nothing in return. He walked in free agency, and Golden State did not even sign-and-trade him. That is a failure of asset management.
Steve Kerr’s public comments about Kuminga last season were not always positive. There was tension about his role. There were games where Kuminga was clearly not the coaching staff’s choice at the position. That tension probably drove some of the summer decision, but the outcome still stings for a Warriors organization trying to squeeze the last few years out of the Steph Curry era.
The lesson for other players is straightforward. Restricted free agency is a trap. If you get a reasonable offer from your team, you take it, or you commit to a strategy that has some backing in the actual market. Turner picked the wrong strategy, and Kuminga is paying for it.
Two years from now, Kuminga will be back in free agency at 25. If he plays well in Minnesota, he could still land a bigger deal. That is the bet Turner is asking his client to make. The alternative is that Kuminga becomes a journeyman and never gets the payday everyone in his camp thought was coming.
Wolves fans should be optimistic. Warriors fans should be frustrated. The rest of the league is taking notes on what not to do in restricted free agency.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
