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It's safe to say that Jonathan Kuminga isn't in the best of terms with the Golden State Warriors coaching staff; the Warriors, in two must-win games, decided to bench the 22-year-old forward completely. This is a stunning turn of events, as Kuminga has long been touted as an important part of the team's core and yet here he is, in Year 4 of his career, receiving DNP-CDs in crucial contests.
Kuminga's role has been especially diminished in the aftermath of the trade that brought Jimmy Butler to the Bay Area. And Steve Kerr's decision as of late to remove him from the rotation has called into question his place in the Warriors' future plans, and whether or not he'd be playing a role for the team in their upcoming first-round matchup against the Houston Rockets.
Kerr's latest remarks suggest that there might not be a role for Kuminga in the Warriors' playoff run considering how he views the Kuminga/Butler pairing.
“I have to read what we need. I have to read who’s playing well together. And to be very frank, the Jimmy / JK (Kuminga) combination has not been great and that’s the tricky part here. And I’m playing Jimmy 40 minutes a night because Jimmy is, he’s one of the very best players in the league,” Kerr said via Wilard and Dibs on 95.7 The Game.
Indeed, given the choice, the Warriors would much rather rely on Butler than Kuminga; Butler is proven in the grand playoff stage, after all. And it's a tricky for a coach to navigate the delicate balance between handling players' egos and doing what's best for the team.
This doesn't mean that Kuminga shouldn't have a place on the team moving forward. But the Warriors recognize the urgency of the situation and would much rather stick with what's working.
Steve Kerr, Warriors believe in Playoff Jimmy
The Warriors decided that the risk that comes with acquiring Jimmy Butler is well worth it. And the turnaround that they managed in the aftermath of acquiring Butler proves that taking that leap of faith was worth the price.
Integrating Butler, however, has come at the cost of Jonathan Kuminga and his role. The fit between the two is iffy at best considering their lack of production from beyond the arc. And this has left Steve Kerr with little to no choice but to make hard decisions to optimize the personnel at his disposal.
“There’s a reason we’re here and we’re in the seventh seed… And the reason is Jimmy and so my job as a coach is to keep the team on a path that I think gives us the best chance to win. And for now, that’s why I’ve been leaning into the lineups that I have,” Kerr added.
