Jonathan Cuminga has played only three of the Golden State Warriors’ seven first-round games, and his future with the team is in the air.
After nearly blowing the 3-1 series lead, the Golden State Warriors beat the Texas’ Houston Rockets in Game 7 and proceed to play the Minnesota Timberwolves in the conference semi-finals.
Jimmy Butler and Stephen Curry naturally own the spotlight for the Warriors’ success, but Jonathan Cuminga has been attracting attention for the wrong reasons. In the regular season Warriors’ must-see final game (they lost) and subsequent play-in tournament victory, Kuminga didn’t play.
In four of his seven games against the Rockets, he was relegated to the bench again, playing only a seventh minute in the final game of the series.
Kumunga is not playable at all because there is no better terminology. And his tenure with Golden State will end this season or later.
Kuminga spent most of the regular season, with an ankle injury on his sidelines, as the Warriors’ third-best scorer. In the postseason, Buddy Heald, Brandin Posiemsky and Moses Moody stepped up with 33, 26 and 25 points outings, respectively.
The Warriors didn’t seem to need him, and his poor play in Game 7 only solidified the case to help him receive DNP for the rest of the Warriors season.
For a talented Timberwolves team with ample star power, the margin of error is zero.
“Well, it’s going to be huge, especially against Minnesota, because everyone was wondering, ‘Who’ll be that third guy for scoring?’,” Kendrick Perkins asked.
“We thought it would be Jonathan Cuminga, but they mentally don’t have him there so they need to have him sit for the rest of the playoffs.”
Perkins urged Steve Kerr to double the fire and rely on more Halds, at least until the Sharpshooter proved him wrong.
“Tonight was huge for them, especially the first half of that,” he finished. “But that’s what leadership does, is that right? It scrapes the guys down. So we watch as we play with confidence. We see the coaches believe in him. Steph trusts him. Draymond Green trusts him.”
Of course, the Warriors have non-Cumminga players who can step up if necessary.
At his best, Kuminga is a reliable defender and a solid scorer, but his external shots always leave something that is desired. Rather than dealing with the mental revocation and dissatisfaction that Kuminga recently exhibited, Kerr decided to replicate him in a total.
Moody can replace his defense, with Posiemski and Haild both being more versatile offensive players.
Plus, even third-unit players like Pat Spencer, Kevin Knox and Trace Jackson Davis have stepped up and played with rare chances. Cuminga was released in all postseasons.
Of course, it’s hard to blame him. When the Warriors traded with Jimmy Butler, Cuminga was effectively swapped in spin. He and the Warriors are unable to agree to a contract extension and he knows he will play elsewhere next season, so his drive to contribute to the team is, of course, gone.
However, with the warriors competing for the title, it’s unreasonable to expect Kerr and his teammates to get out of the way to comfort him.