The Golden State Warriors have high hopes for incoming rookie Jonathan Kuminga as he's poised to have a huge role coming into the 2021-2022 NBA season. Kuminga, the Warriors' seventh overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, is a promising young kid who's hoping to make an immediate impact for head coach Steve Kerr and the rest of Dub Nation.
According to Warriors' Player Development coach Kris Weems, they knew that Kuminga had the potential to be someone like six-time All-Defensive Team member, Draymond Green.
“So we did talk about him playing a little bit of [center], we still want him to play on the wing and play the three and four for the most part. And work on his ball-handling and his passing. But you can be effective as a five, I mean, Draymond Green is a Hall of Famer because he does a lot of the things that Jonathan does,” Weems said (via NBC Sports).
The 18-year-old rookie is a 6-foot-7 athletic beast that naturally plays the three or four slot. As Weems mentioned and as we've seen the Warriors do in previous seasons, Kuminga might even see a ton of minutes playing the small-ball center just like Draymond Green.
“We will be very specific about those times that we can run packages of plays we can put in there, but the versatility on defense is what really sets him apart,” Weems added.
Kuminga, alongside last year's rookie James Wiseman, is only a few of the young pieces that the Warriors have added over the past few seasons. With their championship core still in tact with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and the aforementioned Green, look for this new-look Warriors to try and make another playoff run this season.
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