Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga has ‘lost faith’ in coach Steve Kerr

January 5, 2024

Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga has been a pretty important part of the rotation for the majority of the season.

That is, until Kuminga sat on the bench for the final 18 minutes of the latest loss, which came via a miracle buzzer-beating shot from Nuggets star Nikola Jokic.

Now, Kuminga is frustrated and has “lost faith” in Warriors coach Steve Kerr, according to a report from Shams Charania and Anthony Slater of The Athletic.

“(Thursday night) was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” a source told Charania and Slater.

We can presume those comments were made by someone close to Kuminga, a client of agent Aaron Turner, who hails from northeast Ohio.

Kuminga, 21, had 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting in the limited minutes against the Nuggets. So the fact he was benched truly is a head-scratcher.

“He was playing great,” Kerr told reporters of Kuminga after the game. “His normal time to go back in would have been around the five-, six-minute mark (of the fourth). (Andrew Wiggins) was playing great, we were rolling, were up 18, 19, whatever it was. So we just stayed with him. Then at that (later) point, it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. He had been sitting for a while. So I stayed with the group that was out there, and obviously, we couldn’t close it out.”

Talk around the league is that the Warriors will look to move either Kuminga or Wiggins before the Feb. 8 trade deadline. Most seem to believe it will be Wiggins, as Kuminga is among the bright spots for the future, as Golden State’s dynasty has now begun to fade.

“Their numbers are not good together, frankly,” Kerr said of Kuminga and Wiggins last month. “They’re very redundant. So the tape and the numbers haven’t been great. But we recognize, too, that we have a level that we need to get to really compete at the highest level. And if those two guys can coexist on the floor, it does give us an elevated athleticism and elevated potential. But we have to find the right combination of people around those two.”