NBA

What’s next for the Warriors after Jonathan Kuminga wants to be traded to the club?

ballervisions 2026年1月15日

What’s next for the Warriors after Jonathan Kuminga wants to be traded to the club? appeared first on NBC Sports Bay Area

League sources confirmed to NBC Sports Bay Area that Jonathan Kuminga sought a trade away from the Warriors on Thursday, Jan. 15, which is the first day he is eligible for a trade since the contract he signed in the summer as a restricted free agent.

The NBA’s official trade deadline is three weeks away on February 5. So what?

All parties involved, the Warriors and Kuminga, agree that the best move for both is a breakup and a fresh start for the fifth-year champion. However, league sources recently stated that there is a non-zero chance Kuminga stays with the Warriors in the coming weeks and past the trade deadline.

His trade value never dropped as teams around the league saw him out of Golden State’s plans, and the Warriors celebrated a potentially difficult 22-19 hole to climb out of as the 8th seed in the Western Conference at the halfway mark. Kuminga has only played once in the last 17 games, where the Warriors went 10-7, playing nine and a half minutes against the Phoenix Suns in a one-point loss after Steve Kerr said he would “reward” Kuminga with a string of strong practices.

Kerr has made Kuminga a healthy DNP-CD for every other game since December 7, except that Kuminga was late, and surprisingly, in addition to a report of a painful lower back injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder in a 37-point loss on January 2.

Many teams have shown varying levels of interest in Kuminga, with one always standing out as the strongest prospect. NBC Sports Bay Area listed the Sacramento Kings, Dallas Mavericks, Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards as those teams last week on Jan. 7. Some things have already changed.

Kuminga’s contact with the Mavs, though they like the idea of having him in a rebuilding situation alongside rookie Cooper Flagg, was mostly focused on Dallas exploring the Warriors’ interest in Anthony Davis. It was already a fantasy to see Davis in a Golden State jersey with the Warriors’ reluctance to trade Draymond Green or Jimmy Butler, and now the always-injured Davis is out for at least the next six weeks with a left hand injury.

The Bulls, who were the first team Kuminga played a healthy DNP-CD (Did Not Play, Coach’s Decision) against, looked at Kuminga several times in the past but nothing happened then, and still doesn’t happen. The Wizards recently traded heavily and traded Trae Young, sending Corey Kispert, who the Warriors have liked in the past, and CJ McCollum to the Atlanta Hawks. That leaves Amakhosi, who also pushed hard for Kuminga, remaining among the four teams.

However, the Warriors lost power to their enemies from the north. The Kings offered a three-year, $63 million contract to Kuminga over the summer, putting guard Malik Monk and a 2030 first-round draft pick on the table. The draft pick has been off the table for a while now with Kuminga racking up DNPs, and the Warriors have no interest in Monk, with three years and more than $60 million left on his contract.

The Phoenix Suns are another team that offered Kuminga a contract at the beginning of the season. Their offer was a four-year, $90 million contract with the coveted Kuminga pick at the end, in exchange for veteran Royce O’Neal and multiple second-round picks. The Warriors didn’t see that as a good enough trade, and the Suns currently don’t have the same kind of interest in Kuminga for the season.

With Moses Moody’s $13.4 million contract on the books through the 2027-28 season, the Warriors have no interest in taking on long-term contracts and dealing with future first-round picks a few years from now in what could be the post-Steph Curry era.

Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. became the name most associated with the Warriors on social media. In fact, the Warriors, as NBC Sports Bay Area reported three days ago, have been skeptical of Porter and have never shown the kind of interest that would get a deal done. The parties have not spoken for more than a month.

The Nets are not Kuminga’s team. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have selected five players in the first round of last June’s draft, and they would have opened their wallets as one of the only teams with salary cap space last summer.

A multi-team trade for Porter would be an option if the Warriors even wanted to go down that road. They showed no desire to give the Nets multiple first-round picks for Porter.

The player they can do that for is 25-year-old Trey Murphy, who is averaging 22.2 points per game on 38.9 percent shooting from three-point range. But the Pelicans have far less reason than the Nets to move their best asset during the offseason.

As the list of potential Kuminga teams gets murkier, there’s one to keep your eyes on: The Los Angeles Lakers.

That connection dates back to the summer of Kuminga’s restricted free agency saga. League sources told NBC Sports Bay Area at the time that the Lakers were monitoring Kuminga’s situation and the possibility of him taking a qualifying offer when he becomes an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2026.

Lakers president of basketball Rob Pelinka is a fan of Kuminga, sources said, and likes his vision as an athletic wing on a team led by Luka Dončić. The Warriors are aware of the similarities between the Lakers and Kuminga, although it remains unclear how likely a move between the two teams will be during the season.

The Warriors have a team option on Kuminga’s second season, and he actually has a $23.4 million contract that expires this summer. That can be important for teams, of course. It also can’t be emphasized enough how much moving forward with each other now will benefit Kuminga and the Warriors, a team that won’t have Curry and Butler playing at the highest level as a team while the contract for sale sits and watches on the bench.

To stand idly by is to fail in the mismanagement of property. The Warriors can see what Curry and Butler are up to, and any help is better than no help.

Changes come quickly in the NBA. There is undoubtedly more than one group that likes Kuminga, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. More may be added in this three-week window as Kuminga becomes eligible for trade. His standing with Kerr and the Warriors is unclear.

Time to move on, and time to let Kuminga move on.

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