SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 As the Golden State Warriors prepare for life without Jimmy Butler, who will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL, the key question in the short term is what happens with forward Jonathan Kuminga?<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old hadn\u2019t played since Dec. 18 before scoring 20 points in 21 minutes Tuesday against the Toronto Raptors, and there remains frustration between the Warriors\u2019 front office and Kuminga\u2019s camp about his role. ESPN reported last week that Kuminga has demanded a trade, but with Butler out, the Warriors could use Kuminga in his absence.<\/p>\n
Before Tuesday\u2019s 145-127 loss, Warriors coach Steve Kerr was noncommittal when asked whether he expected Kuminga to be part of the rotation again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could be, yeah,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cHe obviously hasn\u2019t played in a while, but at this point, we have to experiment a little bit with rotations, see where we are, and he\u2019s definitely a part of that talk, that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about Kuminga\u2019s recent trade demand, Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy offered a telling response.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as the demand, I\u2019m aware of that,\u201d Dunleavy said before Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cIn terms of demands, when there\u2019s a demand, there needs to be a demand on the market. So we\u2019ll see how that unfolds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunleavy, who acknowledged he wasn\u2019t sure exactly how Butler\u2019s injury would affect the Warriors at the trade deadline, was honest in his assessment of the group as he tried to remain positive about whatever the future might hold for his team.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s call it what it is,\u201d Dunleavy said. \u201cWe\u2019re not as good without Jimmy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerr felt awful that the 36-year-old former All-Star was going to miss the rest of a year in which he really started to help the Warriors find a rhythm.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of all, just disappointed for Jimmy,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cHe\u2019s having a great year. I felt, like the last couple weeks, he was really at the top of his game. So, for him, and for us, obviously, but for him individually in the middle of a really great season with a lot of possibilities \u2026 I just feel terrible for him that he\u2019s gonna miss the rest of the year. It\u2019s part of the game. Injuries are part of it, but it hurts for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Warriors said Butler will have surgery at a date to be determined. He suffered the injury with 7:41 left in the third quarter of Monday night\u2019s win over the Miami Heat. He jumped up to catch a pass from Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski and fell awkwardly on his knee while trying to catch the ball over Heat guard Davion Mitchell.<\/p>\n
Kerr said that, though he feels for Butler, he also feels the Warriors are \u201cwell equipped with our depth to continue to play at a high level\u201d in his absence. Butler averaged 20 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists in 38 games this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have enough now to compete,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cI think Al (Horford) and Melt (De\u2019Anthony Melton) have given us a different dynamic. I think a lot of our young players \u2014 Quinten, Will Richard, those guys \u2014 are ready to contribute. They have contributed. We\u2019ve got depth. So, we can keep this thing going. Obviously, we\u2019ll miss Jimmy. He\u2019s one of the best players in the league. You can\u2019t minimize that, trivialize it, but you play with who you have, and I like who we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butler\u2019s injury comes at the worst possible time for a Warriors team that entered Tuesday\u2019s game having won 12 of its last 16 games. Butler was in the midst of his best stretch of the season \u2014 averaging 21.9 points in January and providing a stabilizing force behind Warriors star guard Stephen Curry.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just look at it matter-of-factly,\u201d Kerr said of the injury. \u201cWe get it. This is part of the NBA, part of sports. I\u2019m not gonna spend a whole lot of time analyzing where we are in the food chain of the NBA. I\u2019m gonna focus on what we can do to win tonight and win the next game. We have a good vibe going. We have a really good rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will Kuminga join that rhythm consistently? Many in the Warriors organization were frustrated by the fact that Kuminga didn\u2019t play in a Jan. 2 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder after Kerr said earlier that day in a radio interview on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco that Kuminga would \u201cfor sure\u201d play as the Warriors rested Curry, Butler and veteran leader Draymond Green. Kuminga popped up on the injury report about an hour before the game with what the team called lower back soreness and had not seen the floor for a month before Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Does Kerr feel Kuminga still wants to play for the Warriors right now?<\/p>\n
\u201cI do,\u201d Kerr said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 As the Golden State Warriors prepare for life without Jimmy Butler, who will miss the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2243,355,99],"class_list":["post-421141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}