Jonathan Kuminga's surprise benching sparks season-best performance in Warriors' win

10/30/2024 01:22 AM

The stage was set for Jonathan Kuminga’s best game of the season. Not only were Andrew Wiggins and De’Anthony Melton out for the first leg of the Golden State Warriors’ home back-to-back against the New Orleans Pelicans, but Stephen Curry was joining them on the Chase Center sidelines, leaving Steve Kerr’s team bereft of dynamic scorers and ball-handlers despite its exceptional depth.

What better way for Kuminga to shake off his obvious early-season funk than the utmost necessity?

When the Warriors submitted their starting lineup before tipoff of Tuesday’s game, though, Curry and Wiggins weren’t the only regulars missing. Kuminga’s name was conspicuously absent, too, with Kerr opting for Moses Moody at small forward instead.

It was easy to jump to conclusions from there. Kuminga didn’t get the massive rookie contract extension that would’ve cemented him as a Warriors fixture before the October 21st deadline. His play over the season’s first three games as a full-time starter on the wing were at best uneven, and at worst actively damaging. Suddenly benched with the Dubs down their top-two scorers, latent friction between he and Kerr seemed bound to resurface.

Apparently, no one told the 22-year-old of those palpably fraught circumstances. After playing an indispensable role in the short-handed Warriors’ 124-106 comeback victory over the Pelicans, Kuminga—just like he did concerning failed extension talks—downplayed the significance of his eyebrow-raising shift to the bench.

“It’s just the game of basketball. At the end of the day we always gotta stay professional,” he told Zena Keita of NBC Sports Bay Area. “Man, that’s what we do—just gotta come out here every day and just play, because that’s what we choose to do every day. No matter what circumstances, no matters what’s happening, just gotta come in and be a professional and play the game of basketball, play the game that you love and go home. It’s that simple.”

Jonathan Kuminga’s big game highlighted by career-best sequence

Kuminga finished with 17 points, three rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block in a season-high 28 minutes of action. He got off to another rough start on Tuesday, unable to contain Brandon Ingram defensively and struggling to carve out space to operate on the other end amid lineups that lacked high-level shooting. When Ingram wasn’t draining jumpers in his face, Kuminga was getting a dunk blocked by impressive New Orleans rookie Yves Missi or having the ball stripped from him by the smaller C.J. McCollum on a post-up.

Almost nothing Kuminga did early suggested a breakout game was coming. His personnel-specific demotion from the starting five and continued underwhelming play seemed like an inevitable tipping point player and team would be forced to address on the postgame podium.

But the light bulb came on for Kuminga midway through the second quarter, as Golden State fought tooth and nail to recover from a 20-point hole. The Dubs’ aggressive, handsy defense allowed Kuminga to get loose in the open floor, decisiveness attacking downhill with and without the ball that extended to the halfcourt.

The Dubs took complete control after halftime, coming alive on offense as New Orleans—already playing without the injured Dejounte Murray and Trey Murphy III before Herb Jones left for good early in the third quarter—wilted under the relentless pressure they applied defensively.

“We all just came out here with one mindset: Just putting pressure on defense,” Kuminga said of Golden State’s second-half performance. “[Draymond Green] said that as long as we put pressure on defense the offense will be easy, so that’s what we just came out here and did.”

There were many moments in that dominant third quarter when Kuminga flashed his budding skill with the ball. A smooth pull-up three from the left wing as the Pelicans miscommunicated a switch was encouraging, and Kuminga’s slick backdoor bounce pass to a cutting Lindy Waters III in traffic provided more hope that he’ll soon grow comfortable playing on the perimeter.

But any member of Dub Nation watching from the friendly confines of Chase Center or couches and bars across the globe knows exactly which sequence from Tuesday’s game portends his future stardom most. A lefty touch finish past Missi coupled with a back-line block at the rim was reason for celebration enough. Coupled with Kuminga’s subsequent transition push and late lob pass to Trayce Jackson-Davis, they makesthis three-possession highlight perhaps the most encouraging stint of his career.

That’s the version of Kuminga who deserves the max-level money he wanted from the Warriors in an extension. If craft finishes, impact help defense and advantage-creation passing prove much fewer and further between as 2024-25 continues, there’s even a chance Golden State jumps at the chance to give him that type of deal in restricted free agency come summer.

What Kuminga’s big night means for more pressing matters remains to be seen. Kerr explained his hot-button decision to bring Kuminga off the bench after the game, owing it to understandable concerns about spacing given the absence of Curry and Wiggins alongside a starting frontcourt tandem of Green and Jackson-Davis. Waters started for Buddy Hield in the second half, now in line to potentially open Wednesday’s game against New Orleans following an eye-opening performance of his own.

No matter where he is at tipoff in the long run, anticipate Kuminga coming off the pine again for the back half of the Dubs’ two-game set with the Pelicans. Instead of resulting struggles and tension, though, go ahead and expect a newly confident Kuminga to make the same kind of game-changing impact he did on Tuesday.

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