The Golden State Warriors have gone on record indicating they would like to retain Jonathan Kuminga as he enters restricted free agency. Kuminga has been more of a favorite of Joe Lacob and the front office than of Steve Kerr throughout his tenure with the Warriors.
“We value JK,” Mike Dunleavy Jr. said. “I think he had a resilient season. … As far as bringing him back next season, I think it’s something we’re very interested in doing because, when I look at the things JK does well, in terms of getting to the rim, finishing, getting fouled, these are things we greatly need. We know he can bring those to the table. It’s not hypothetical.”
Dunleavy added: “For that reason, we’ll try to bring him back, but you’ve got to have those conversations. You’ve got to figure it out. It’s a two-way street in terms of creating — getting a new contract and all of that. So, we’ll see where it goes.”
The Warriors could re-sign Kuminga, or they could also work on a sign-and-trade. Steve Kerr said if Kuminga remains with the Warriors, Kerr is committed to making things fit better than they did after Butler arrived at the trade deadline.
“I thought he had a really good year,” Kerr said. “He was really coming into his own before he got hurt. The injury really hurt him. When he came back from the injury, he was not in rhythm, he was not the same player he was when he got hurt. So that put kind of a little bit of an obstacle in our way as we are trying to get to the playoffs.
“It felt square peg, round hole for us. We obviously went away from JK as part of the rotation, and he handled it really well. … He’s a guy who has got a lot of talent and ability, still growing, still raw in many ways, but a lot of what we have to figure out is roster construction and combination. … Combinations were tricky. We have to do a better job as a staff of figuring out some things and how we are going about our business. JK has got things to improve on, and we got to improve our roster all-in-all.”