Jonathan Kuminga’s summer keeps getting worse. The Golden State Warriors restricted free agent is still without a long-term contract in the middle of August, and the market that once had him pegged as a $30 million a year player has quietly evaporated.
The latest wrinkle: the Atlanta Hawks are now positioning themselves as a potential sign-and-trade partner. Sources around the league say Atlanta has told other teams they are willing to help facilitate a Kuminga move, but only if the Warriors sweeten the deal with a pick or a rotation piece.
That is the leverage game. Kuminga wants out of Golden State. Golden State wants to get something back. The rest of the league knows both things and is willing to wait Kuminga out, betting he will eventually take the qualifying offer or a smaller multi-year deal.
Kuminga is a fascinating case. He is 23. He is really gifted athletically. He can score in bursts and defend multiple positions when he is dialed in. He is also inconsistent, has had public disagreements with Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, and has never shown he can be a reliable primary option on a good team.
The market decided months ago that he is a rotation piece, not a foundation piece. That is not what Kuminga’s camp wanted to hear. His representation was floating $30 million-per-year comps in July. Nobody paid it. Nobody is going to.
The Warriors, for their part, want to move on. Steph Curry is 38 and running out of prime years. Golden State needs to add real talent right now, not developmental projects. Kuminga’s spot on the roster and payroll is holding up other moves. Getting him gone with a return that helps this year is the priority.
The Hawks make sense because they are rebuilding around Trae Young and could use young athleticism on the wing. Kuminga would fit their timeline better than he fits Golden State’s. The problem is that Atlanta does not want to overpay just to help the Warriors solve their problem.
The dance from here is predictable. Kuminga’s camp will hint at signing the one-year qualifying offer, which would make him an unrestricted free agent next summer with zero cap hit on the Warriors. That is a threat to Golden State. The Warriors will counter by making it clear they will not pay him what he wants, and that the qualifying offer means less playing time and less market development.
Somewhere in the middle is a deal that gets done in early September. Probably a three-year contract in the $18-22 million range annually, with the Warriors and Hawks working out a sign-and-trade that gets Kuminga to Atlanta and Golden State a second-round pick or a veteran on an expiring contract.
That is not the outcome Kuminga wanted when the summer started. It is the outcome the market is going to force. Restricted free agency is a brutal system for players who do not have max-level leverage.
Kuminga just found that out the hard way.
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.
