James Wiseman stole the show in the Golden State Warriors' 86-85 win over the San Antonio Spurs at Las Vegas Summer League, celebrating his highly anticipated and long-awaited return to the floor with a thunderous lob dunk, pull-up three-pointer and pair of impressive blocks all in the game's first four minutes.
He wasn't nearly as dominant once he first went to the bench, but still showed enough burgeoning skill and understanding thereafter for the Warriors to feel unabashedly encouraged by Wiseman's first competitive action in nearly 15 months.
But just as pertinent to Golden State's long-term trajectory as Wiseman's overall growth is Jonathan Kuminga's ongoing evolution. Following a notably ugly performance in Golden State's Sin City opener, a determined Kuminga provided ample reason for optimism against San Antonio, finishing with a game-high 28 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
Those monster numbers and typically intriguing highlights nothwithstanding, Kuminga was hardly perfect on Sunday.
He lived at the charity stripe, overwhelming the Spurs off the bounce with his rare blend of power and burst, but clanked 11 of his 18 free throws. Struggles with the shot extended to the three-point line, where Kuminga went just 1-of-7. His time moonlighting as the Warriors' primary ball handler elicited promise overall, but Kuminga still finished with five turnovers, clearly needing more on-ball reps to get a better grasp of how to read and manipulate NBA-level defenses.
Still, there's no denying he looked like a potential future All-Star versus the Spurs, an especially important development given his self-admitted career-worst showing 48 hours earlier.
“The big difference was just to come out here and prove to certain people that I'm still the same player even if I had one of the worst games I've ever had in my life,” Kuminga said. “I didn't really worry about that game. All I worry about is just come here, help my teammates win this game, help my coaches win this game, and that was my motivation.”
Expectations should've been tempered for Kuminga in the Warriors' Las Vegas opener, and not just because he'd flown in from the Congo just two days prior, suffering from jet lag and missing key practice time with his teammates. Kuminga also hadn't been tasked with a primary scoring role since this time last year, either playing off advantages created by Steph Curry and Golden State's stars or sitting on the bench as a rookie. Rust was inevitable.
“I don't think it's always gonna be like that because I've been on the team, this is about to be my second year,” Kuminga said of his roles in Summer League versus the upcoming regular season. “I know what I'm capable of doing with Steph, Klay and Draymond on the court. I just gotta go out there and execute every play we do, and just help the team to win.”
Kuminga's maturation into the player he could be is a multi-year process, one bound to contain a couple steps back for every few steps forward. There's only so much to take from any Summer League action, but it's telling of his commitment to getting better nonetheless that Kuminga responded to “one of the worst games of [his] life” with a showing that forcefully reminded why he's such a pivotal player for Golden State—certainly in the future, and possibly in 2022-23.
We'll see if Kuminga can build on it when the Warriors continue play in Las Vegas on Tuesday against the Boston Celtics.
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