Warriors Fans Should Be WORRIED About Jonathan Kuminga Re-Signing | Warriors News

Warriors Fans Should Be WORRIED About Jonathan Kuminga Re-Signing | Warriors News

[Music] Yesterday we analyzed the impact of Jonathan Kaminga resigning with the Warriors for the 202526 season and how that would impact the locker room and the overall vibes when Golden State is trying to win another championship. On today’s show, we’re going to analyze the real oncourt impact of Kaminga returning. Is he going to be in the starting lineup? How big of a role is he going to play with Golden State and Steve Kerr rotations here? Because guess what, folks? It is happening. The Warriors have shut off all sign and trade talks with the suitors out there for Jonathan Kaminga, of which there are few. And it looks like he’s going to come to terms on an agreement with the Warriors. They’re going to meet somewhere in the middle on the current options that they have set in stone right now. We know that Kaminga rejected this Warriors 2-year $45 million offer because there’s no control over his future there. He would have an inherent tra no trade clause with the deal because it’s a oneplus one team option. no guaranteed money in the second year of the contract. He, the Warriors, have said if he signs this deal, they want him to wave that no trade clause, and that’s what’s holding it up. Kaminga also has the qualifying offer out there as well, which would give him full control of his future, but it would kind of be a lame duck there, making only $8 million for the Warriors, and the Steve Kerr would have no reason to actually play him in the lineup and increase his stock for next off seasonason. And then the third option is they Warriors adjust their offer a little bit, guarantee a little bit of money in the second year of that deal, and that eliminates the no trade clause in the contract. So that would kind of help Jonathan Kao make a little bit more money, and the Warriors have a little bit more flexibility to trade him. So that’s where we’re at right now. Regardless, he’s going to resign with the Warriors at some point, and we got to see what that looks like on the basketball court. Before we begin and tell you how it’s all going to go down with JK, if you’re watching Warriors Today on August 7th, you’re an absolute basketball sicko. So, make sure you are subscribed to the channel. It’s 100% free Warriors content all year long. And if you’re here, go down below and support today’s show. Like the video, which puts it in YouTube’s Jet Stream and gets it out to as many people as possible. And while you’re here as well, comment your favorite warrior of all time, but it can’t be Steph Curry. So, go down below in the comment section, give me a deep cut. Who’s your favorite warrior of all time? Let’s get right into it. Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area, one of the most tapped in individuals around the dub, said this. Steve Kerr said to us at the end of this past season that Jonathan is, if Jonathan is back, that at the beginning of the season, he will use that fourman combination of Steph, JK, Jimmy, and Draymond. Just at the start of the season at least, he’s going to have to experiment a bit and see what it looks like. John is right. Like, Kaminga is gonna be making upwards of $21 million this upcoming season. you have to play him next to your best players and he wants to be, you know, a big-time contributor to this offense. So, you’re going to have to try to play him next to your best guys, Steph, Jimmy, Draymond. Like, that’s just the reality of the situation. And that’s kind of unfair to Steve Kerr, who has kind of built this Warriors rotation after the Jimmy Butler trade to be as conducive to winning as possible. And that did not include Jonathan Kaminga when he came back from injury. So, now in this weird prove it season for really both sides, Steve Kerr has to be forced to play Jonathan Kaminga big time minutes in his lineup. And that makes him kind of have a hand tied behind his back in the whole situation. You know, he can’t coach to the fullest extent that he wants to. Kaminga is not conducive to Steve Kerr’s system, but this year, at least at the beginning of the season, he’s going to have to try it out. And he noted that in the exit interview at the end of the Warriors season. He said this, “When he did come back, it was a tough fit following the Kaminga injury. But we didn’t have the luxury of just experimenting and giving that more of a runway. So, if JK comes back, we’ll have to look at lineups with both Kaminga and Jimmy for sure. And Kerr did give Kaminga a little bit of, you know, a p like a leeway here in the sense that he wasn’t as physically ready as he should have been after that injury. Like, it’s unfortunate that he suffered this ankle sprain that kept him out for an extended period of time, like two months. And now the Warriors are a whole month of basketball into playing with Jimmy Butler, somebody who plays a similar role in style or at least or similar role in style that Golden State wants him to play as Jonathan Kaminga. So it was is tough fit to play two identical players who really don’t space the floor together and expect that to work off of the rip after one version of the rotation is already working with one of those guys. So I it’s unfortunate that Kamega couldn’t play with Jimmy Butler right away, but I’m not that optimistic that that duo will be, you know, the most conducive to winning this season either. And then you got to think about what Steve Kerr said a whole week later after just pray, you know, saying that he’s going to have to play JK and Jimmy together. He sat down with Tim Kakami and he was like, I can’t play Jonathan Kinga 38 minutes a night next to Steph, next to Draymond and expect to win basketball games. So, like, yeah, to the media that was grilling him right after this the Warriors season was over, he probably said, “Yeah, I have to play Jimmy and JK next to each other.” Kind of hoping that JK is not back. But now we’re getting closer and closer to that being a reality. And and Kerr is probably going to have to be his hand is going to have to be forced a little bit. And look, if they if Steve Kerr wants Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Kamega to play together, it’s going to have to be in the starting lineup. like Kameh is going to have to be playing that 30 plus minutes a night that Steve Kerr was not confident in him playing uh back at the end of last season. He’s just going to have to roll with the punches here and play your best, you know, five players out there on the basketball court. And that’s why this potential starting lineup is a possibility, but it’s really just a combination of your five most skilled basketball players. Is it really a combination of the best skill sets, the best complimentary players out there? Absolutely not. I mean, we saw this season that that, you know, Jonathan Kaminga in this rotation is kind of like water and oil. It does not fit very well. Now, could Al Horford, the addition, the presumptive addition of Al Horford kind of help and alleviate the pressure off of Jonathan Kaminga to be that floor spacer, at least to be a super relied upon floor spacer because we know how well of a three-point shooter that Al Horford is at this point. And look, I would like to play Draymond Green at the center as little as possible. Like I don’t want to play uber small ball lineups. We saw uh during the Rocket Series and during the Minnesota Timberwolves series that these guys can just not hang with the bigs in the Western Conference. They have to go out and get reinforcements. Guys like Quinn Post have to go get get a whole heck of a lot better and they had to make an external signing. Luckily, we have Al Horford waiting in the wings. But man, I I I there’s not much there behind that. Looney left and and there there isn’t a lot of center depth on this team. Draymond’s going to have to play some minutes at the five, but I would like to limit that as little as possible, which kind of limits Jonathan Kaminga because the Warriors don’t see him as a three. He’s going to have to be playing the four a whole heck of a lot if the Warriors want to at least win basketball games. So, who knows here? I I’m I’m rambling on, but I I I don’t want to see Draymond play much much minutes at the five if Kaming is going to be out there. Dalton Johnson continued on saying more about this. He said, “Well, we know that it didn’t look great when playing all those guys together for the first time.” time he said obviously it was crazy it just didn’t work. If you bring in a stretch five like Horford that could help but Jimmy’s not a two. JK is not a two. Okay, do you put Draymond to the bench and start an equal dollar role for him? I mean it’s interesting like it’s it’s something to think about. Draymond’s ego off the bench for a full season. I don’t know if that would go over very well, but he is at the at the end of the day a team guy and we’ll do whatever it takes to win. So, I could see if they feel super intent on starting Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Kinga together, pushing Draymond Green to the bench and having a lineup that looks a little bit something like this. You have a lot more floor spacing out there on the floor. And you’re really only two non-spacers are Jimmy Butler and Kaja the Kaminga. You can’t really have Kaminga, Draymond, and and JK are and Jimmy all on the floor at the same time because this league just is too three-point reliant. And then those three guys don’t hit it at high enough clip or a high enough volume to keep up with a lot of these high octane offenses in the NBA. So now you have a lineup of Curry 40% from three-point range. Buddy Heield can be 40% from three-point range for stretches. Al Horford 40% from three-point range. Then you know Jimmy Butler and Kaminga are going to hit theirs when they get the opportunities. The wide openen ones you hope and they can put a lot of pressure on the rim in this lineup as well. Now I will note that the starting two guard in that kind of lineup could rotate. It could be pods. I I would like to see him become more of a relied upon shooter from the outside. He was laying bricks all postseason long. Uh could it be a Moses Moody? He was a a part of the brick laying squad as well, but he had stretches where he was really really solid from outside and so did Pods as well. So could the Anthony Melon eventually land in the starting lineup? I’m sure he’ll be kind of slowed to reaclimate back to basketball after just tearing his ACL at the beginning of last season. So the starting two guard could rotate. I’m throwing Buddy Heield in there. He’s probably the best playoff performer at that position and he gives you the most at least um safe floor spacing if you want to play Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Kaminga together. So get creative for me down in the comments section. What’s your ideal 25 26 Warriors starting lineup? I want to hear from Dub Nation. Is it one that is a little bit more floor spacing reliant, you know, more of an offensive lineup? Or do you guys want to go big and just play the five best players out there on the basketball court? Try to see what Jimmy can do with the two. Maybe have Draymond initiate a lot of that offense. Let Steph work a lot off of the ball. Jimmy kind of the same thing. Uh let me know what you guys think the Warriors best shot is at their starting five this off this next season. I’m going to tell you guys next why pretty much a lot of what I just said playing Kaminga and Jimmy and connects to all these guys just isn’t going to work out great and it might result in the Warriors not getting a great package from another team when they want to trade Kaminga down the line next season. We’ll talk about that in just a moment. But first, get hooked up with this awesome deal at this link right here, chatports.comdubscity. Look, the City jerseys, they reset every year, but Drip lasts forever. Like, this is absolutely a really really nice heavyweight long sleeve shirt, and I’m going to get one for myself because it’s super super discounted. It was 50 bucks, now it’s 35. So, go get it at this link right here, chatports.com/dubcity. I love this combo of colors that Golden State’s running. I want them to kind of do an inverse of it next season, so you guys could rock this thing forever. This link right here, chatports.com/dub city. It’ll be in the comments section. It’ll be in the description of today’s video. go down below, click that link, and get dripped out today. Look, I think it’s unfair to judge the Kaminga and Butler minutes like solely those two guys together because they played for such a short period of time and Kaminga was coming off of an injury that he never really fully recovered of. And then, you know, you factor in Jimmy in the postseason, like he got injured, fell fell on his tailbone and had that uh that glute injury. Like, it it was a a rocky road for both of them at different points in time and they never really got both guys playing at 100% next to each other. Now, am I saying that that’s going to work out? No. Because, you know, we haven’t seen it work out next to the other stars, the other floor spacers on this roster. Remember this graphic that we we pulled up yesterday on the channel? Well, remember like like look at these lineups like what does it tell you? Kaminga is a part of the three lineups with the lowest net rating. And the lowest one is obviously him on the floor without Steph and Draymond. And then the number one lineup that you see per net rating is J is Draymond and Steph on the floor without Kaminga. And this is over the last three seasons. If you think this is a small sample size, it’s absolutely not. This is basically since Jonathan Kaminga has gotten an elevated role or a relatively elevated role in the Warriors offense compared to where he was around his rookie year. Now, you’re not going to change the way Jonathan Kinga plays. He’s not going to play like Aaron Gordon. He’s not going to play like Shawn Marion. He’s going to play like himself. and he’s going going to try to showcase the skill set that he believes that he has as an isolation scorer, as a just go-to guy in an offense. So, yeah, it sucks because you’re letting this guy kind of dictate your off seasonason and dictate part of your regular season as well. You kind of have to lean into that skill set and just hope and pray that the guy improves, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in that regard. And we’ll start with on the defensive end because a lot of people like to say that yeah, Kamika’s got all the tools, super athletic, but when you look at the the advanced analytics of how he is as a defender, like it is really really poorest, man. Like he’s at the bottom of the lineup when it comes to defense. And then you guys are going to come at me in the comments section as Jimmy Butler has a worst defensive um rating on this this chart. Well, Jimmy Butler was also hampered and hurt and had to shoulder a lot of the offensive weight after Steph left the lineup and he got hurt in the Rocket Series as So, of course, his defense was going to be picked on, and we saw that with Anthony Edwards. He shot like 80% on him. He couldn’t he literally could not move. So, Kaminga, outside of like Buddy Healed, was the worst defender on the Warriors roster in the postseason. And no, look, he put up big-time offensive numbers in that Minnesota series. The Warriors weren’t competitive in any of those games. And then you look at like a pure perimeter defender cuz like you could say, oh, you know, he’s a really good on ball defender. You just stick him on a guy who’s super athletic. A lot of people have told me that, you know, Kaminga is one of the better point point of attack defenders on the Warriors roster. If you look at these stats from Bball Index, one of the sites that I trust a lot, yeah, they would say the complete opposite. Kaminga is the seventh best point of attack defender on the off on the defense. So, like I’m not going to hear that he is some, you know, under the radar like untapped defensive player. He’s got to buy in and he’s yet to do that in his NBA career. And then you just go to the offensive end, which is arguably worse when you look at it from a broad sense because if you look up top at just the percentiles in the league, like he’s a 25th percentile three-point shooter. He’s a 24th percentile true shooting percentage. I mean, the field the free throw percentage isn’t even on there, but he’s like a 30th percentile free throw shooter. Uh the plus minus, he’s a 57th percentile. He’s just not positive a positive contributor to both ends of the floor. And then everything else is pretty yellow as well as aside from free throws made. He could put pressure on the rim. I’ll give him that. He’s an Uber athlete. If he couldn’t put pressure on the rim, he wouldn’t be in the goddamn NBA. And if we expand that shot chart a little bit, that looks like a McDonald’s logo. This one is a little bit more advanced. U and we, by the way, we don’t want it to look like a McDonald’s logo. We would like it to look like a a green lizard of some kind. If we look at this roll adjusted um you know, shot chart from around the around the court, it just puts a little bit more into perspective here as just the rather the entire mid-range. I mean, if you look at this guy above the free throw line, it’s atrocious. 12.5% from that little push shot area. One step below the free throw line, shoots less than 40% from inside 15 ft. Like, that is absolutely atrocious. Um, from the low block, a guy shoot like the the short corner. He’s shooting less than 30 30% on short baseline jumpers. It’s it’s it’s atrocious. He’s shooting 31% from on corner threes. Like, it’s laughable laughable stuff. and and to insinuate that he’s just going to masterfully come to above league average in a lot of these hot zones like you’d be naive to think that. So I’m just a little hardressed to believe that Kaminga is going to positively contribute to the Warriors on the basketball court this season which is only going to bleed more into the off-c court issues in the locker room and the chemistry and whatever Golden State is trying to build as they chase number five for Stephan Draymond. With that being said, I talk a lot of about Kaminga. If you made it to the end of the video, you you can fry me in the comments section. Predict a statline for the 2526 season though, so I can bookmark those and let you know when you’re wrong after this season is over. And with that being said, that’ll do it for today’s edition of Warriors Today by Chat Sports. Keep us locked in as your number one source for Warriors content all offseason long. Hit that sub button. We’ll see you guys all in the next one. And as always, let’s go Dubs. [Music]

Golden State Warriors News & Rumors discussed on today’s show::
– Jonathan Kuminga and the Warriors appear to be heading towards a reunion for the 2025 NBA season despite trade rumors
– Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is reluctant to insert Johnathan Kuminga into the starting lineup despite Stephen Curry and Buddy Hield spacing the floor
– Latest Warriors rumors: Al Horford, formerly of the Boston Celtics, is rumored to be joining Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler and Stephen Curry in the Warriors starting lineup
– 2025 NBA playoffs showed Kuminga’s struggles on both the offensive and defensive end, despite being a lottery pick in the 2021 NBA Draft
– Warriors Today host Tyleer Smith breaks down all the latest Warriors rumors and news on Jonathan Kuminga & Steve Kerr on today’s Golden State Warriors YouTube video.

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Golden State Warriors Potential Starters:
– Stephen Curry (G)
– Jimmy Butler (F)
– Jonathan Kuminga (F)
– Draymond Green (F)
– Al Horford (C/F)
– Buddy Hield (F)

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Dalton Johnson, NBC Sports Bay Area:
“Steve Kerr said to us at the end of this past season that Jonathan is back, that at the beginning of the season, he will use that four man combination of Steph, JK, Jimmy and Draymond, just at the start of the season, at least, he’s gonna have to experiment a bit and see what it looks like”

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If you enjoyed today’s show, check out the other Golden State Warriors YouTube videos we cooked up:
– 🚨MAJOR Giannis Antetokounmpo Update + LATEST Jonathan Kuminga Report | Warriors News https://youtu.be/2WvJw-8MMjk
– 🚨SHOCKING Jonathan Kuminga Update via Warriors Insider | Golden State Warriors News https://youtu.be/WEpoZaqxfw0
– Warriors Just Got BAD NEWS From Jonathan Kuminga + Gary Payton II RE-SIGNING? https://youtu.be/S5CY0wPdteI

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Steve Kerr On Jonathan Kuminga Re-Signing:
“When he did come back, it was a tough fit, but we didn’t have the luxury of just experimenting and giving that more of a runway, so if JK comes back next year we have to look at [lineups with both JK and Jimmy] for sure.“

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Flex your Warriors knowledge in the comments below 💪
– What’s your ideal 2025-26 Warriors starting lineup?
– Predict Kuminga’s statline for the 2025-26 season!

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