Jonathan Kuminga, Warriors finally complete inevitable divorce with Hawks trade

SAN FRANCISCO – After spending several years making multiple efforts to launder a miscalculation made in the 2021 NBA draft, the Warriors on Wednesday night finally threw up their hands in belated capitulation.The Jonathan Kuminga Project is over. The divorce is finalized. The fantasy that was visualized never materialized.The Warriors, per a league source, sent Kuminga, along with Buddy Hield, to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for veteran big man Kristaps Porzingis in a deal first reported by ESPN.At 7-foot-2, Porzingis addresses Golden State’s acute need for size, but he comes with considerable risk. He has an extensive injury history. He missed 40 games last season and has played only 17 of 52 this season. The Warriors like his size and they love his 30.7 million contract, which expires this summer.The Warriors, according to sources, have not completely shut off their phones. They continue to ponder other potential moves before the NBA trade deadline at noon Thursday.Moving Kuminga, however, was a priority.Selected seventh overall in the ’21 draft, Kuminga came to the Warriors at age 18, a superior athlete with a very raw game. As he and the Warriors sought a measure of synthesis, his performance alternated between good and bad, exhilarating and frustrating, which factored into inconsistent playing time. Not until the 2024-25 season did both sides concede the obvious and conclude that their differences were irreconcilable.Yet it took more than a full year of estrangement for the Warriors and Kuminga to reach their desired destination. A formal split.The relationship, really, was doomed from the start. Golden State had a strong core, with Draymond Green and a returning Klay Thompson supporting Curry. The Warriors envisioned Kuminga, who grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, would grow into a star who would be a fixture in their next core. They revamped their development staff, coaxing Jama Mahlalela, another native of Africa, from the Toronto Raptors, to foster JK’s development.Mahlalela lasted two seasons before going back to Toronto.Kuminga remained on the roster, growing increasingly frustrated with shuttling in and out of the starting lineup and being in and out of team’s rotation.Either Kuminga or coach Steve Kerr had to make an adjustment, and it wasn’t going to be Kerr.Golden State, under Kerr, operates with the same offensive formula that in 2015 brought the franchise its first championship in 40 years, followed by three more, and delivered five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals. The Warriors are a band, and Stephen Curry is the lead singer whose mere presence makes offense easier for his teammates.Aafter Curry went down with a hamstring injury last May in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Kuminga came out of deep freeze to put up four potent scoring performances in losses, Kerr doubled down on his commitment to the Curry-centric blueprint.“Here’s what I know: We have Steph Curry on our team, who’s one of the greatest players of all time,” Kerr said. “He’s also maybe the most unique superstar of all time. What makes him special is his on- and off-ball prowess. The best way to maximize Steph is to put him in pick-and-roll and then to have him fly off screens. I think that’s been proven over the last decade how powerful that can be.“He is our sun. This is the solar system. He is our sun. You’re not going to duplicate Steph any time soon.”Kuminga at his best is a solo artist on offense. Give him the ball, let him work inside the arc and perhaps be rewarded. In four-plus years with the Warriors, JK proved to be a misfit within a system that is most effective with players – including future Hall of Fame scorers Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson – able to decipher how to best exploit Curry’s gravity and manipulation of defenses.Kuminga yearned to hold the mic that, by design, belonged in the hands of Curry.“I’m probably disappointed it hasn’t worked out better,” general manager Mike Dunleavy said of the Warriors-Kuminga venture. “But, you know, it is what it is.”It didn’t work out better because it was a gamble from the start. Kuminga was too raw to offer much to the Curry-Green-Thompson core. When Thompson left to join the Dallas Mavericks in the summer of2024, Kuminga still had not become the player the Warriors imagined he’d be.Maybe he will become a star in Atlanta – and I hope he does – but it surely was not going to happen with Golden State.Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Jonathan Kuminga, Warriors finally complete inevitable divorce with Hawks trade

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