Jonathan Kuminga of the Golden State Warriors dribbles the ball against the Sacramento Kings during the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game at Chase Center on March 13, 2025, in San Francisco.
Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
The ongoing saga of Jonathan Kuminga’s time as a member of the Golden State Warriors appears closer to a breaking point than ever before after Kuminga didn’t play in Sunday’s regular season finale.
The 22-year-old was left out of the Dubs’ rotation entirely in the overtime loss to the Clippers Sunday afternoon. The only time Kuminga took the floor was well after the game ended, getting in an on-court workout once fans had left the arena and just the media remained in Chase Center.
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On an episode of “Warriors Plus-Minus” posted on Sunday night, San Francisco Standard columnist Tim Kawakami and the Athletic’s Marcus Thompson and Anthony Slater spent nearly half of the episode diving deep into the dynamic surrounding Kuminga and the Dubs. All three came to similar conclusions about the relationship between the player and team, particularly regarding coach Steve Kerr.
“When [Kerr] said at the last game, ‘We were playing better weeks ago. We’re not playing as well as we were weeks ago,’ what happened a few weeks ago? Jonathan Kuminga came back in the lineup,” Kawakami said. “… It’s pretty obvious that Steve Kerr is not too interested in having Jonathan Kuminga be in the main rotation.”
It’s not the first time that a Kuminga benching has become a serious piece of the Warriors discourse, but the timing is the biggest issue here. Slater called the rotation snub an “alarm bell ringing” in terms of the contract discussions for the pending restricted free agent and noted that “there’s definitely some sour feelings.”
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The Warriors will have the right to keep Kuminga if he gets a massive contract offer in the offseason. But is the team really willing to pay him over $30 million a season, as has been reported he’s seeking, if Kerr isn’t willing to play him down the stretch? Thompson sees this as indicative of what’s ahead.
“It feels like this is the end of the era,” Thompson said. “… If you’re Kuminga, you’re like, ‘I’m not coming back to a coach that doesn’t believe in me.’”
Steph Curry has talked up Kuminga in the past, most notably saying about him, “If we’re going to win at the highest level, he has to be a part of it” after their win over the Lakers. But according to Kawakami, there’s no one in the Warriors’ locker room pushing to play Kuminga right now.
“This is not heading down a Kumbaya road. It is not,” Kawakami said. Slater quickly chimed in and added, “By the way, it’s been four years. This is not some stunning betrayal today.”
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Thompson, though, called the Kuminga benching a “misstep” in the big picture of the Warriors’ postseason chances. As he put it, if Golden State needs Kuminga at some point in the playoffs, there’s a big risk in not playing him now and not utilizing the skills Kuminga does bring to the table.
“If they’re going to get where they need to go, you can’t just cut off parts of the team that actually work because you don’t like some other part,” Thompson said. “Just use the one thing he can do, which is get downhill, put him in position. And they could have used that at points tonight.”
Kawakami and Slater both noted how Sunday’s game was treated like an elimination game by Kerr and the Dubs and expect Kuminga could end up back in the rotation if the Warriors get into a seven-game series. But all three reporters don’t expect Kuminga to play on Tuesday in the play-in tournament game against the Grizzlies.
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