Warriors’ TRADE Threat, Crazy Turn In Jonathan Kuminga Standoff

Warriors’ TRADE Threat, Crazy Turn In Jonathan Kuminga Standoff

Jonathan Kaminga’s restricted free agency just got worse with now the Warriors resorting to an extreme threat to try to get what they want. I’m Trevor Lane. This is the Basketball Bulletin. Make sure you subscribe right here to the channel and turn on those notifications. I’ve said it before, but about 70% of you, you’re not subscribed. Let’s fix that. Hit that subscribe button. All right, let’s get into what’s going on. This is Anthony Slater of ESPN explaining the latest on this situation. A frustrating situation for the big four free agents, restricted free agents I should say, around the NBA. Jonathan Kaminga, Josh Giddy, Quinton Grimes, and Cam Thomas. According to Slater, the Warriors have made a push to retain Kaminga, upping their offer. It was reportedly 2 years and 40 million, so 20 million per year. Now, it’s up to a 2-year $45 million contract offer. So, a little bit more money heading to Jonathan Kaminga, but he continues to decline their offer. Why? because of the secondyear team option. The Golden State Warriors want there to be a team option on the second year and they want Jonathan Kaminga to decline to wave the built-in no trade clause that that deal would have. So, the way this would work is for the NBA’s perspective, they would look at that deal as actually a one-year deal. If it’s a secondyear team option, if there’s a secondear option on a two-year deal like this, they look at it as though it’s really a one-year deal. And why that matters is because if it’s a one-year deal and the player is traded, they would then lose their bird rights. The incoming team would not get their bird rights. Let’s say Kaminga signed that deal and then say in February he got traded to the Orlando Magic. Well, it would still be looked at as a one-year deal and the Orlando Magic would not have his bird rights in that deal unless that option was picked up prior to trading for him. So, it would make trading him that much more difficult. And I think that’s a big part of this situation. And it’s not so much that the Warriors are not offering Kaminga enough money or not offering him a fair amount, but it’s also the sense that the Warriors are offering him a deal that they feel will be tradable. I don’t know that Kaminga is the right fit for the Golden State Warriors. I don’t think Kaminga thinks that he is the right fit for the Warriors, nor do the Warriors believe that he’s the right fit. The Warriors don’t want to lose him for nothing. And so, whatever contract they give him, they wanted to be very movable. So, they’re offering a two-year deal because they feel like that’s going to be more tradable in the current market where long-term money is seen as a negative thing. And in order to make sure it continues to be tradable, they want him to wave his no trade clause. Well, Kaminga would not be interested in doing that. particularly when he’s got better offers from other teams right now. For the time being, the Warriors may actually be doing what they can to try to swat away offers from the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings so that Kaminga will have no other option but to sign with them or is it all a ploy to get the Suns andor the Kings to up their offers? I’m going to get into what the Warriors are really doing in just a moment, but take a look at this. Kaminga’s agent presented the Warriors a few frameworks back during summer league, a three-year deal worth about 82 million that would allow the Warriors to stay below the second apron and use the taxpayer mid-level exception. So that’s north of 25 million on a three-year deal. The Warriors were not interested in doing something like that. Again, I think the fear is that Jonathan Kaminga would not have positive trade value if he signed to that high of a number and for that many years. And the Warriors in particular are one of several teams that are right now not taking back salary going into 2027. If we take a look at their cap sheet, they don’t want any long-term money on their books. By the way, look at how thin the Warriors roster is right now. That’s because they can’t sign anybody else until they get this Jonathan Kaminga situation figured out. So Al Horford, the Anthony Melton, a few of the players just sitting out there on hold right now because the fear is that if they use part of their taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Al Horford andor DeAnthony Melton, what would happen is that would effectively give them a number that they cannot match in order to sign Jonathan Kaminga. And then another team, say the Brooklyn Nets, could come in with a big offer and actually give Kaminga a number that the Warriors could not match. So they don’t want to be able to give up the leverage of being able to to match literally any offer. Right now they use that as the stick to scare away any kind of offer from Kaminga by promising to match anything that comes in. But if suddenly they are hardcapped at the second tier apron by using some of their taxpayer mid-level exception, which right now they are 37 just about $37 million below that. But if they use some of their mid-level exception to sign Al Horford, they they use it to sign uh their taxpayer mid-level, I should say, to sign DeAnthony Melton, next thing you know, there is a number at which Kaminga could be offered by another team that the Warriors under their current books without being forced to make some kind of other move in order to clear salary off their books and open up more room. And obviously if you’re in that type of situation where in order to match Kaminga’s contract with the clock ticking on your on your restricted rights in order to match the deal that he would have signed with someone else, you would have to imagine that the Warriors would not have any kind of leverage in that negotiation to clear salary off their books and would probably have to pay a very high price to do it. So, the Warriors right now have everything on hold that they’re planning on doing while they’re waiting for this Kaminga situation to resolve because they don’t want to be stuck in a vulnerable spot where Kaminga gets offered a contract that they cannot match. Now, check out what they’re doing though. This I think this is crazy bonkers stuff here from the Golden State Warriors. So, Kaminga and Turner have used July to explore their sign and trade options. The Sacramento Kings, we’ve talked about this before. The Kings and the Phoenix Suns are the teams that are most interested in him. They’ve got proposals up to four years, $90 million, which on a per year basis is a bit less than what he’d be getting from the Warriors. But it also has a player option in the final season. And Kaminga believes that Phoenix and Sacramento would offer him a more featured role. That’s a big part of this, too. He doesn’t feel like the Warriors really want to allow him to show what he can do. he doesn’t feel like he fits in Golden State. Whereas in say Phoenix, you look at it, they don’t really have a power forward to turn two in their starting lineup right now. He would immediately go into their starting five and would be a featured player for them. That’s not going to be true of the Warriors. And so, it’s not just the money here, it’s the role that would be attractive to Jonathan Kamingo. So, if you’re looking at a 4-year deal with a player option on the final year and $90 million in total from the Phoenix Sun or the Warriors are offering you 2 years 45 million with a team option on the second year and you have to wave your no trade clause. So, once again, the Warriors control your destiny. Well, it’s easy to see why Kaminga would be more interested in going to the Suns or going to the Kings than staying with the Warriors. Kaminga is saying, “Hey, I’ve got these other deals out there on the table. Why would I take this deal from you? However, look at this. The Warriors, we know they’re not interested in what the Kings and Suns have been offering, and I’ll talk about why in just a minute. But look at this. In recent days, they have begun signaling a plan to cut off sign and trade conversations entirely using their restricted free agency leverage to the fullest. So, think about that. That means that the Golden State Warriors want to be able to tell Jonathan Kaminga, “Guess what? the sons, the kings, those offers, they no longer exist. We wiped them off the table because we’re simply going to refuse to trade you. So those are no longer there for you. You have us or nothing else. Take it or leave it. That’s the Warriors plan here because they don’t want Jonathan Kaminga to say, “Hey, I could have a better role in Phoenix. I could have more money in total in Phoenix. I want to be traded there.” The Warriors want those offers to completely disappear. So, Kaminga has no choice but to sign with them. Or that could also have the effect if the Warriors are signaling that they’re just going to cut off all negotiations of forcing the Kings andor the Suns or at least attempting to force them to add in whatever it is that the Warriors want in these trade packages. That could be part of this strategy as well. Now, remember, Jonathan Kaminga does have the nuclear option. He could play for the qualifying offer. The qualifying offer would be a one-year deal. He would be an unrestricted free agent at next summer and it would come with a full no trade clause. So, if Jonathan Kaminga is worried about control, and this does seem to be about control, if Jonathan Kaminga is worried about that, he could pick up his qualifying offer. He could play on a one-year deal and then be an unrestricted free agent next summer. he would be able to go to whatever team he wanted and there would be nothing the Warriors could do to stop him. That is the nightmare scenario for Golden State. That is the scenario in which Jonathan Kaminga could walk away, could leave the Golden State Warriors, and they could get nothing in return. The Warriors don’t want that. Kaminga doesn’t want to do that because he doesn’t want to play on the qualifying offer. He’d rather get long-term security, get the big money right now if he can, of course. But the threat of him signing that qualifying offer is the highest card in Kaminga’s hand because that would be a disastrous scenario for the Warriors in which they could lose Kaminga, get nothing in return, and that’s where they don’t want to be. They want to make sure that even if Jonathan Kaminga is not a great fit for them, and I think everybody agrees that he’s not, they still want to make sure they get value back. And that’s why it’s possible that this threat to completely cut off trade negotiations is just to get the Suns andor the Kings to put forth the offer that they want. Tim Kamakami noted uh about a week ago that the Warriors part of their reason why they’re so determined to get maximum value for Jonathan Kaminga is because they want assets to go pursue Giannis Dumpo should he ever hit the trade market. Whether that’s mid-season this year, next summer, whenever, they want to have pieces to go big game hunting if and when the next star hits the market with Giannis specifically being mentioned. But the problem with the Suns offer right now and the problem with the Kings offer is long-term money. Again, the Golden State Warriors do not want money that goes past 2027. So, when we look at the Sacramento Kings, Malik Monk would be involved, would have to be for salary matching purposes, and he’s got money going into 2027. That’s a no-go from the perspective of the Golden State Warriors. You go look at the Phoenix Suns and what they could offer. Similar situation. Grayson Allen, fine player. Look, Malik Monk is a good player. Grayson Allen, good player, but $19.4 million in salary going into the 2027 season. That’s a sticking point for the Golden State Warriors. Now, do the the Warriors also look at a player like say Ryan Dunn and say, “Well, we want him to be in the deal.” And for the Phoenix Suns, do you say no, we don’t want to give up our young wing. We’re we’re hurting on the wing. We need more wing players. We don’t want to give up Ryan Dun. Could that be a sticking point? Remember these teams, the Suns, the Kings, the way they have to look at this is not only do they have to be willing to pay Jonathan Kaminga the kind of money that Kaminga wants, they have to be willing to give up stuff on their roster, valuable pieces for the right to pay Jonathan Kaminga the money that he wants. So, it’s got to be the right number for Sacramento and Phoenix. Got to be the right number for them. And they’ve got to really watch Jonathan Kaminga because you’ve got to give up valuable pieces. The Warriors reportedly wanting first round draft capital as well. You’ve got to be able to give up valuable stuff just for the right to pay Jonathan Kaminga on a big money long-term contract. Now, he’s a talented player, so maybe that ultimately is where this lands. But the big shock out of all of this is that the Golden State Warriors preparing to cut off trade negotiations in order to force Kaminga’s hand andor force the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings to give a better deal. Now this last bid here, the Warriors, this is from Anthony Slater, believe they have the best offer on the table for Kaminga. I disagree. if four years 90 million with the player option is there on a team that will actually feature him. I disagree with the Warriors stance there, but I get why they why they may think that. Um the deal is purposely structured to be tradable come January 15th and Kaminga’s ultimate desire is to play elsewhere. It would allow his next team to decline the team option and extend him. He would be the fourth highest paid player in the Warriors next season if he accepted the offer. So again though, he would have to give up his no trade clause. So the idea is that with that team option, his next team could just decline the team option, then give him an extension off of that. And while that’s true, it would also give the power to the Golden State Warriors to trade him wherever they see fit, wherever they want to trade him to. And that is not a situation that Jonathan Kaminga wants to be in given how things have gone so far with himself and the organization. So here we are. Here we are. Jonathan Kaminga and the Warriors still stuck right now. And now Golden State looking to go to the extreme and completely cut off trade negotiations. Everybody, this is a crazy situation. We’ll of course be covering here on the basketball bulletin where see we’ll see where it ultimately lands. Do we get to a point where Jonathan Kaminga just says, “Fine, screw you guys. I’m taking the qualifying offer.” or does a trade get worked out or do the Warriors relent and give up their desire to have that no trade clause wiped out? We’ll see which path we ultimately go down here with Jonathan Kaminga, a talented young player, but what a mess right now with him and the Golden State Warriors. Give me your thoughts in the comments down below. Don’t forget to subscribe right here to the channel. Till next time, see you and stay safe.

In this video Trevor Lane takes a look at the latest developments in Jonathan Kuminga’s restricted free agency with the Golden State Warriors, including the offers presented by the Suns and Kings, the Warriors’ demand that Kuminga relinquishes his no-trade clause in their deal, and an extreme threat by the Warriors to cut off all trade talks to force Kuminga’s hand or flush out a better offer….

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