The Jonathan Kuminga free agency saga at the Golden State Warriors has now astonishingly dragged on for over two months, with potentially still some weeks to go given the October 1 deadline for the young forward to accept his $7.9 million qualifying offer.
There’s a real possibility that this situation goes right down to the final days before that deadline, but it’s Warrior superstar Stephen Curry who may hold the key in forcing a long-awaited resolution that fans have been crying out for.
Stephen Curry could force Warriors into a Jonathan Kuminga resolution
Golden State have exercised patience when it comes to the Kuminga situation this offseason, having turned down sign-and-trade offers from the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings while most recently seemingly refusing to increase their current two-year $45 million (second year team option) offer.
It’s easy to hold patience — and ask teammates and prospective free agents to hold patience — when it’s still the offseason. It’s more difficult to do so once players and teams look to ramp up towards the start of the season, something that’s on the horizon with training camp now less than a month away.
According to Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer on Friday, there’s a hope that the return of players (and specifically Curry and Jimmy Butler) to the team’s training facility could increase some urgency on the Warriors working out the Kuminga situation.
“There’s some hope that next week, over the weekend, is when players and teams will start to go back into their respective practice facilities that maybe Stephen Curry gets in the building and starts looking around. That Jimmy Butler gets in the building and starts looking around. And they’re like, ‘alright we either want Jonathan Kuminga back or we’ve got to get some kind of resolution,'” Fischer said.
Curry has always been patient when it comes to the Golden State front office and potential roster moves, having hardly been the kind of superstar that goes and demands certain things by certain times like many franchise players have done.
Yet even he would have some level of frustration, particularly if he gets into the practice facility and only sees eight other teammates who are on the main roster. Perhaps this is now the time for the 2x MVP to utilize his power within the organization by going and demanding that the front office either raises their contract offer to Kuminga, or becomes more tolerable to sign-and-trade offers from rival teams.
As for Butler, he could do the same but perhaps it means less coming from a player whose still fresh within the organization, particular in comparison to Curry as the franchise’s greatest ever player coming into his 17th NBA season.
The Kuminga situation finally meeting an end point is expected to bring a flurry of moves, with the Warriors still likely to sign Al Horford, De’Anthony Melton and Gary Payton II (among others) in free agency.
