{"id":29824,"date":"2025-10-30T06:21:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/29824\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T06:21:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:21:57","slug":"the-kuminga-kerr-relationship-is-honest-open-and-succeeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/29824\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kuminga-Kerr relationship is honest, open, and succeeding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the Section 415 email newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to the Section 415 podcast wherever you listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A strange and strained summer of negotiation could\u2019ve alienated Jonathan Kuminga from all important facets of the Warriors, but he seems more connected than ever to everyone in this franchise.<\/p>\n

A tangle of conflicting signals about his place with the team and his interest in finding a larger role elsewhere could\u2019ve made Kuminga something of a nonentity in the locker room and in Steve Kerr\u2019s planning, with a ticking countdown for his eventual exit.<\/p>\n

But Kuminga seems happier and more plugged into Kerr\u2019s ethos and guidelines \u2014 by a factor of 100 \u2014 than at any time in his complicated Warriors career. It just seems simpler: He\u2019s good, he\u2019s maturing, he gets minutes, he plays well, he fits in, he\u2019s trusted.<\/p>\n

Yes, at least for now, this seems to be the rarest of NBA developments: What looked like something that would tear things apart has actually created a healthy dynamic for a team that remains unilaterally focused on winning one more title in the Stephen Curry era.<\/p>\n

Listen toSection 415<\/p>\n

1 day ago<\/p>\n

Section 415: Min Woo Lee, Steph Curry, and the story of The Bay Golf Club<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

5 days ago<\/p>\n

Section 415: The Giants\u2019 hire of Tony Vitello marks the start of a bold new era<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Oct. 21<\/p>\n

Section 415: Ballers manager Aaron Miles on bringing a title back to Oakland<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to be the problem to mess it up,\u201d Kuminga told me in the locker room after Tuesday\u2019s victory over the Clippers. \u201cI\u2019m growing. I\u2019m in my fifth year now. I know what winning means. And I know what I want to get \u2014 winning a championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no bad blood or anything like that. I don\u2019t think there was ever bad blood. It\u2019s just all the narrative, all the talking around outside. But we\u2019re good. We\u2019re good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuminga was smiling as he said this but clearly miffed that he had to utter the words; that anybody presumed he would sign his two-year, $48 million deal (with only this year\u2019s $23.5 million guaranteed) and not come back committed to whatever helps the team win games.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just that Kuminga has been such a good teammate since signing the deal late last month \u2014 then turning 23 a few weeks later \u2014 it\u2019s that he has played so efficiently and so thoughtfully in these first five games. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s that Kerr, who dropped Kuminga from the rotation late last season and into the playoffs because he didn\u2019t fit with the new Jimmy Butler kinetic wave, couldn\u2019t ask for more. And Kerr has wisely rewarded Kuminga by putting him and keeping him in the starting lineup to start this season next to Curry, Butler, and Draymond Green (with a floating fifth spot).<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll be our starter going forward,\u201d Kerr said of Kuminga before Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cHe\u2019s been fantastic. Last night put him on Ja [Morant]. Tonight, we\u2019ll put him on James Harden.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s ready to take on that role defensively. And what he\u2019s doing offensively, the decision-making, the shot-selection. We\u2019ve hardly seen any of the mid-shot-clock 17-foot pull-ups. We\u2019ve seen him being much more focused on getting the ball to Jimmy, getting the ball to Steph, attacking the rim. He\u2019s really putting a lot of pressure on people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing is the combination of Jimmy and Draymond and JK wasn\u2019t great last year. But because of all the improvements that JK has made, his passing and stuff I just mentioned, it\u2019s really clicking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuminga had a quiet game (compared to his first four) Tuesday, but in its way, his performance was more subtle and even more important because it\u2019s so sustainable.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t get as many touches or shots, but he kept doing the little and medium things that mean so much to the Warriors. Grabbing loose balls. Hounding Harden on defense. Passing to cutters. Just running. Never looking impatient. Never getting yanked out of the game by Kerr after a bad mistake.<\/p>\n

But Kuminga later emphasized that he\u2019s just fine if Kerr barks at him for an error. In fact, Kuminga said he\u2019s told Kerr that he wants to be held accountable, to be told directly, to be able to talk about it, and to sit on the bench for a while when and if these things happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re just staying on top of communications, me and him \u2014 things that I feel or see out there or things that he sees,\u201d Kuminga said. \u201cOur communication has been great, figuring out things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember some of the things I\u2019ve told him before, like, \u2018I\u2019d love you to coach me as hard as you can. Just coach me. Just don\u2019t go away from me, just coach me. No matter the circumstance. I do something bad that I don\u2019t need to do, don\u2019t go away from me. Come tell me that. If you don\u2019t tell me in the middle of the game, send somebody. I want that word coming from you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going out there trying to do much. There is nights where they\u2019re going to want me to do more and do what I can do. But there\u2019s nights like today, just go out there and do what you\u2019ve gotta do, no matter what\u2019s going on, and stay positive and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Kuminga: Did you and Kerr maybe need all the summer drama to figure out how much you guys needed to clear the air?<\/p>\n

\"AKuminga scored nine points in the Warriors\u2019 win Tuesday over the Clippers. | Source: Amber Pietz\/The Standard<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what?\u201d Kuminga shot back.<\/p>\n

About your role and whether he believes in you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said when I first started talking to you, I told you that I just wanted him to push me more, harder,\u201d Kuminga said. \u201cThere is nothing about \u2018believing,\u2019 anything about roles, none of that. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou said, \u2018Did we have to clear anything?\u2019 There was nothing to clear. There is no problem between me and Steve. That\u2019s my coach, and I\u2019m his player. I come in every day to win. He\u2019s going to push me hard, and that\u2019s how we\u2019re going to keep going to help the team win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results so far are undeniable. Let\u2019s go through some of them.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Warriors weren\u2019t in love with the grueling pace of games to start this season \u2014 five in eight days, including two back-to-backs, but they got through it with a 4-1 record, including going 2-0 against the Clippers and Lakers after going 1-7 against the L.A. teams last season.<\/p>\n

With Kuminga at full force, suddenly they can tap into his energy at almost any point of the game, a key part of at least two or three of these wins.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Kuminga is averaging a career-high 30.2 minutes per game but taking only 10.8 shots per, lower than the previous two seasons, when he played a lot less \u2014 and averaging a career-high 16.2.<\/p>\n

\u2022 He\u2019s shooting 52.7% overall, 43.8% from 3-point distance, which is far above his career 33.5% career rate. He\u2019s also taking fewer 3s \u2014 one less per 36 minutes than he did last season.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Kuminga is averaging 7.4 rebounds per game, far above his career 4.1 rebound average.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s showing up most significantly on the all-important defense glass, where his rebound rate is up to 21%, from a career rate of 14.7%.<\/p>\n

\"TwoKuminga has excelled playing alongside Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler this season. | Source: Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/p>\n

\u2022 So far this season, his usage rate is a relatively moderate 21.6%. Last season, one of Kerr\u2019s problems was that Kuminga had one of the highest rates in the league even in a supposed supplementary role: 27.4%. (For comparison, Curry\u2019s usage rate was 29.8%, and Butler\u2019s was 20.6% during his Warriors stint last season.) <\/p>\n

\u2022 And Kuminga\u2019s time with the crucial threesome of Curry, Butler, and Draymond has yielded pure gold for the Warriors so far. That group has played more than any Warriors four-man unit (72 minutes) and has a +27.3 net rating. <\/p>\n

By the way, Kuminga is also on the second-, third-, and fifth-best four-man Warrior units so far this season. (One consequence of starting Kuminga is that Kerr can match his minutes with Curry, which is always a good thing for any player. And that clears the way for a Butler unit when Curry and Kuminga are out.)<\/p>\n

And, as Kuminga and Kerr have noted, when Curry, Butler, and Draymond get some nights off (hasn\u2019t happened yet, but it\u2019s coming), Kuminga and the other young players will have even larger roles.<\/p>\n

Will this last forever? Probably not. There have been wild ups and downs in this situation for four-plus years already, and there will surely be more to come.<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, if this really is a permanent breakthrough for Kuminga, he will become even more interesting and valuable on the trade market in January and February. But if they keep winning, of course, the Warriors would have less incentive to want to trade him. We\u2019ll see how far this goes.<\/p>\n

One of the more interesting developments as a side note to this Kuminga situation is that Butler is specifically committed to supporting him and nudging him every day. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s happy; he\u2019s joyful,\u201d Butler said of Kuminga. \u201cHe knows that he\u2019s playing at a high level, he knows that everybody wants him to continue to do that. I\u2019m just here to make sure he stays level-headed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AKuminga is averaging more than 30 minutes per game through the first five games of the season. | Source: Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/p>\n

Wait: Butler as the Warriors\u2019 wise old head for the youngsters? I would not have predicted that at any time before this month, but it\u2019s all true and all right in front of us.<\/p>\n

Late Tuesday night, as Butler was on his way to the podium to speak to reporters, he made a point to stop by Kuminga\u2019s locker and ask him about the colorful design on some of his extra shoes. Kuminga smiled, and they chatted for a few seconds \u2014 just Butler making sure he was checking in with a player he obviously sees as a key to this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many people that are in his corner \u2014 I\u2019m one of them,\u201d Butler said a few minutes later. \u201cThere\u2019s so many other individuals in this organization, on this team, this coaching staff as well that want him to be great.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s OK to make mistakes. You\u2019ve just gotta listen. Sometimes it may not always come off the way that you want it to. But I tell him, I promise, it\u2019s in good faith. Like, nobody\u2019s just yelling at you to yell at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main theme from Kuminga is that he\u2019s not going to be overly sensitive about his minutes, or even about starting. If Kerr at some point decides to cut down his minutes or take him out of the starting lineup, Kuminga said he will be fine if he is told straight up and if there are good reasons for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sitting here thinking that I\u2019m going to keep those minutes,\u201d Kuminga said. \u201cI\u2019ve gotta go out there and earn those minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s another thing I told Steve: If it\u2019s not my night, tell me. I won\u2019t get mad. I\u2019ll be a good teammate, as I\u2019ve always been. I\u2019ll support. I\u2019ll do stuff that will help us win.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a practical relationship, not quite kumbaya forever. But it\u2019s honest and forged by past disconnection, which is better than current disconnection and false pretenses.<\/p>\n

For instance, Kerr has mentioned repeatedly that he\u2019d love for Kuminga to pattern his game after that of Shawn Marion, a super-athletic defense-and-rebounding wing and three-time All-Star from the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

Your thoughts on the Marion comp, JK?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just here to win and play basketball,\u201d Kuminga said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to go out there and play like somebody else. I\u2019m just here to win and do what I\u2019ve gotta do to help us win.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about as matter-of-fact as it gets. And after our conversation, I felt exactly what Kuminga said he\u2019s feeling about his relationship with his coach: It might not always be laughs and hugs, but it\u2019s always better to say the things you feel so that nobody\u2019s guessing and nobody\u2019s making the wrong assumptions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s healthier. It won\u2019t always be perfect. It can get difficult. But when it\u2019s working \u2014 as it is for Kuminga, Kerr, and the Warriors right now \u2014 you absolutely understand that it\u2019s the only way worth trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want more ways to catch up on the latest in Bay Area sports? Sign up for the Section…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7000,7009,101,103,102,104,106,105,127,17007],"class_list":{"0":"post-29824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-golden-state-warriors","9":"tag-jonathan-kuminga","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-steve-kerr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}