Jonathan Kuminga, human onomatopoeia

[This was originally written for the broader NBA audience at r/nba, so please forgive any of the no-duh stuff for Warriors fans, but someone suggested I share it here.]

It’s rare to see a player and a culture as dissonant as Kuminga and the Warriors. Some of that is simple happenstance: players like Kuminga, picked seventh in 2021, are almost never drafted onto championship-caliber teams. Where on most teams he would’ve been a heavy-minutes starter from Day 1, like his maximally-extended peers Franz Wagner, Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham, and Scottie Barnes, he instead had to wait more than two seasons to find a consistent role in the rotation.

Golden State’s system requires some first-hand knowledge, some game-day experience. The Steph Curry/Klay Thompson/Draymond Green Warriors were about off-ball screens, optionality, quick cuts, and sneaky passes. Kuminga has always predicated his game on straightforward athleticism and direct on-ball scoring; subtlety is for players without a 40-inch vertical. But Thompson is gone. The Warriors are in flux, and a leap from Kuminga is indisputably the best way for Golden State to remain relevant as Curry ages out of dominance. Is he capable of it?

[Thanks for reading! As always, I've collected a bunch of illustrative video GIFs for the post. They can be found here or at the links throughout the article.]

Let’s start with the good. Kuminga has emerged as a Category 5 hurricane at the rack. He averaged nearly 18 points in the paint per 100 possessions, more than players like Wagner, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Julius Randle, and he finished an excellent 74% of his attempts at the rim. Despite a ropy frame and quick-twitch acceleration, he relies surprisingly heavily upon brute force. He dents defenders’ chests with his shoulders and then stretches those Mr. Fantastic arms for delicate finger-rolls: [video here]

But that doesn’t mean Kuminga can’t rev the engine. Foes guarded him with centers fairly often, inviting blow-bys: [video here]

Did a rim insult Kuminga’s mother? I’m not sure why else he’d attack it so fiercely in transition (pretty sure I nailed that). If you’re not a fan of these newfangled fast-break threes the kids keep doing, you’ll appreciate that Kuminga has total tunnel vision on the break. For better or worse, he’s running as fast as he can (which is very fast) to the basket. No opponents, wide-open teammates, or tactical sense will stop him: [video here]

That pass to Green has to come an hour earlier, but coach Steve Kerr and the Warriors have long tolerated mistakes of aggression. It’s hard to fault someone for going too hard on the break. In general, Kuminga’s relentlessness is a boon: he is well above average in both transition frequency and efficiency.

Peculiarly, Kuminga’s strengths are the Warriors’ overall weaknesses. As a squad, they ranked 24th in points in the paint and second-worst in fast break points. Without Kuminga, it’s not clear how they’d generate either.

Kuminga might be the only plus positional athlete in the rotation, give or take Gary Payton, but he almost makes up for everyone else. His slams, in particular, were constant and impressive (he set the team record for dunks in a season). The only non-centers who forcibly shoved a ball through the hoop more often (min. 1,000 minutes) were the Thompson twins, Aaron Gordon, Obi Toppin, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. And they’re loud; Kuminga’s dunks deserve onomatopoeia. BLAM!!

KERPOW!!

He can do more than just dunk, of course. Kuminga loves nothing more than backing smaller defenders down before turning for a drop-step or little eight-foot jumpers: [video here]

Relatedly, nobody this side of Pascal Siakam partakes of the spin move like Kuminga. When it works, it looks damn good. Unfortunately, Kuminga turns temporarily blind whenever he even thinks about spinning, exposing him to digging defenders. Combine that with surprisingly weak hands, and you’ve got a recipe for ugly turnovers. If his dunks deserve sound effects, so do his miscues. CLANK!!

His handle has vastly improved since his rookie year, but that says more about where he started than where he is now. Even when he’s not spinning, he loses his dribble in traffic far too often. SQUELCH!!

(Squelch probably wasn’t the right one there, but it was pretty gross.)

Kuminga had the league’s 19th-highest turnover rate on drives, which is doubly concerning when paired with his poor passing vision on those same plays (he had a lower assist rate on drives than anybody above him on that list).

Kuminga has a reputation as a slow decision-maker, but that’s not quite right. Instead, he tends to call his own number too quickly and then stick to the plan no matter what. Teammates, understandably, will often mill about aimlessly when Kuminga’s targeting headset comes on and he enters Attack Mode: [video here]

But like all things Kuminga, that isn’t the whole picture. The Warriors sought to meet Kuminga in the middle, and he noticeably improved as the year went on. He notched three assists per game after the All-Star break, roughly half-again as many as before, even on a per-minute basis. You could see his floor-mapping level up as he started downloading the game state with broadband instead of dial-up: [beautiful pass here]

Kuminga will never be Nikola Jokic. But players like Kawhi Leonard have grown into competent playmakers over time; Kuminga can — and should — get better.

Unfortunately, while he flashed a decent middie, the triples evaporated like morning mist on the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite an increase in playing time, Kuminga’s three-point shot dipped in both quantity and quality in year three. I’m tired of writing about players who need to increase their three-point volume, so suffice it to say, Kuminga’s ceiling as an offensive weapon is capped until he quickens his release and improves from outside.

That lack of a long-range jumper initially relegated Kuminga to a lot of corner and dunker spot placements in Golden State’s offense, but they gradually grew more creative in their usage of him as the season went on. He started setting more picks for Steph Curry both on and off the ball, even filling Draymond Green’s spot in the short roll a few times — Kuminga’s screening, in general, is an underrated part of his game. Nobody will mistake Kuminga for Green as a playmaker, but Green can’t finish in traffic like this: [video here]

The Warriors even found a few innovative ways to take advantage of Kuminga’s lack of gravity, like this practiced chase-to-corner hand-off to a sprinting Curry: [video here]

But for all the Warriors’ collective cleverness, there is only so much juice to squeeze out of Kuminga next to Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins, and a big man. It’s outside the scope of this already-too-long article to get into the particulars of the Warriors’ much-scrutinized lineup choices, but Steve Kerr made it clear that he won’t play Kuminga at the three until he gets better as a playmaker and shooter. Kuminga was at his best as a four next to Green at center, which opened up driving lanes, but the team found a lot of success defensively when Green played power forward next to Trayce Jackson-Davis. It’s a tricky balance.

Kuminga’s own defense has been up and down throughout his career. He has some magnificent on-ball highlights, using his length to crowd ballhandlers, poke away dribbles, and harass jump-shooters: [blocking Durant video here]

But he’s inconsistent and occasionally wild off the ball, overhelping or ballwatching far too often. (It would be nice if his pogo-stick athleticism translated into more defensive rebounds, too). Like their offense, the Warriors’ defensive scheme is complicated, and Kuminga often looked a half-step behind. Here, Kuminga correctly helps in the middle but then tries to retreat to the corner (which Klay had already rotated to) instead of holding his ground, giving up a dunk: [video here]

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? It’s often two steps forward, one step back, which makes for disjointed progress — but progress nonetheless.

After all, Kuminga is still 21 years old (for a few more weeks)! The age-22 season is a classic inflection point, a fertile field for stardom to bud. The one thing that even the fiercest Kuminga detractors can’t deny is that he has upgraded everything except the three-pointer (an extremely important skill, to be sure, but far from the only one). He’s far from a finished project, but he certainly isn’t stagnant.

Assuming the Warriors won’t extend him before the October deadline, next year is a contract year for Kuminga, who needs to prove to Golden State (or interested suitors) that he’s worth big bucks. Frankly, waiting till the offseason for restricted free agency might be best for both sides. Kuminga wants big money, but he needs to show progress in both the loud and the quiet things. Having learned their lesson from the Jordan Poole debacle, the Warriors are in no rush to dole out money to potential for potential’s sake. Both sides could benefit from more information and larger, newer sample sizes.

Golden State is married to the Draymond Green-Steph Curry pairing for now, and while they aren’t likely to win a championship anytime soon as currently constructed, they’re also still good enough to make it impossible to reset the team for the future. While they need Kuminga’s strengths, they also can’t afford his weaknesses. Kuminga doesn’t need to be an All-Star next season, but he does need to prove he can fit next to Green and Curry. If he can’t? It’s unclear how much value he has in the league, but a trade might be best for both sides. If he can? He’ll add a new onomatopoeia to his comic book: KA-CHING!!