Warriors and Kuminga head into an offseason of uncertainty
Jonathan Kuminga’s upcoming restricted free agency remains the one big question mark heading into the Golden State Warriors’ 2025 offseason.
Being a restricted free agent means the Warriors reserve the right to match any offer sheet a team presents to Kuminga, which means the incoming fifth-year forward can still very much remain a Warrior heading into next season.
However, one expected Kuminga suitor isn’t expected to be… well, a suitor in the first place. Per The Athletic’s Anthony Slater:
There is not a current expectation that the Brooklyn Nets are preparing an offer sheet for Kuminga, but there are signs Brooklyn could be willing to use its open cap space as a vehicle to execute multi-team trade scenarios this summer, league sources said.
A sign-and-trade scenario involving Kuminga is still on the table. However, the Warriors may be limited in the contracts they can obtain, per base year compensation rules.
In regard to Kuminga’s situation, the “base year compensation” rule in the CBA is a critical impediment. Assuming Kuminga gets at least a 20 percent raise (he will) and his new deal takes the Warriors over the cap (it will), the incoming salary will only count as 50 percent of Kuminga’s outgoing salary for matching purposes.
Basically: If Kuminga’s next deal starts at $30 million, his next team absorbs it as such, but the Warriors would be looking at a $15 million incoming match. They could exceed it by 125 percent ($18.75 million in this scenario), but if they were to take a dollar more than the theoretical match ($15 million in this scenario), they’d be hard-capped at the first apron.
Leaving all the accounting intricacies to the side, here’s what matters: That combination punch (the base-year rule plus first-apron cap) significantly limits the amount of sign-and-trade opportunities that can realistically be executed.
With the base year compensation rules and the first apron potentially handicapping their ability to obtain value in exchange for Kuminga’s upcoming contract, the Warriors may have no choice but to retain Kuminga at a higher price and see where things go from there.
There have been inklings of both team and player preparing for the possibility of Kuminga coming back to the team. Steve Kerr has recently stated that he would like to play Kuminga, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green more next season should Kuminga return. Kuminga showed flashes of being that scoring punch the Warriors have always needed next to Steph Curry, when Curry was sidelined during their series against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The fit is still imperfect in several ways. Kuminga envisions being a 20-point-per-game main scoring option with the ball in his hands for a majority of the time — which is near impossible in an ecosystem that revolves around Curry, Butler, and Kerr’s philosophy of off-ball screens and cuts that take precedence over isolation basketball. Kuminga’s willingness to do blue-collar auxiliary work (rebounding, cutting, defending, etc.) wax and wane.
While personal animosity — especially between Kuminga and Kerr — is apparently an overblown issue, per Slater’s report, the on-court issue is still a legitimate concern. Both parties, however, may have little choice but to continue their precarious association.