The Golden State Warriors will conduct training camp in Hawaii at the beginning of October. Their first four practices and preseason opener against the Los Angeles Clippers will be on the island of O’ahu, done in part to generate a lower-stress work environment in the first week for a team and franchise often drenched in drama whenever stateside.
This doesn’t set up as an overly anxious October for the Warriors. Their three most established employees — Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Steve Kerr — have secured longer-term contract commitments from ownership. Their fourth, Klay Thompson, didn’t, and now works elsewhere, leaving a forever void with his departure but also lowering the temperature of uncertainty and unease.
GO DEEPER
How Klay Thompson’s 13-year run with the Warriors splintered so unceremoniously
Less contract drama doesn’t mean zero contract drama. Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody are both extension eligible as they enter the final season of their rookie deals. The deadline to get something done is Oct. 21 or they will enter restricted free agency next July. Six weeks out and there hasn’t been significant progress toward a deal in either case, league sources said.
Kuminga’s situation will be the one tracked closest, considering his stature and potential price tag. Drafted seventh overall in the 2021 NBA Draft, he’s expressed a desire to remain with the Warriors long term when asked in the past. But those brighter comments and feelings have normally come when his court opportunities have been on the upswing and his place as a large rotational puzzle piece felt secure.
Kuminga finished fourth on the team in minutes played last season, third in points and shot attempts. He started 46 games and set a single-season franchise record with 138 dunks. The trend lines are pointing in the correct direction for Kuminga after a breakout third season, working as a downhill slasher in a small-ball power forward role between Andrew Wiggins and Green.
But the closing stretch provided a slight hint of looming complication. Kuminga missed six games beginning in late March with knee tendinitis. While he was out, Kerr went to a starting frontcourt combination of Green and Trayce Jackson-Davis. During that 5-1 stretch, Kerr and Green both noted the team’s better defensive structure when Green had a more traditional center and rim protector next to him.
Kuminga returned to a bench role for the season’s brief final stretch. He had mixed results as Kerr toggled lineups. The season ended. Then Kerr delivered a pretty transparent soundbite about the looming frontcourt crunch that the front office kept cluttered this summer.
“What JK is looking at is: How can he make himself more versatile to be available in different lineups?” Kerr said, in part. “Can he be a (small forward)? That’s a big question. And I don’t know the answer to it.”
Kuminga’s cleanest next step would be as a small forward replacement for Wiggins in a starting lineup next to Green at the four and a traditional center like Jackson-Davis as the defensive anchor, maintaining an ability to upsize into a power forward for various combinations. If he were able to excel in that scenario, he’d get the 35-minute role he wants and would be worth the contract he desires.
But if Kerr is of the belief — because of spacing and passing purposes, as he laid out — that Kuminga isn’t a small forward, then Kuminga’s fourth-year role is unclear. If that is the case, Kuminga’s minutes could fluctuate and the contract conversation would get trickier, considering the large investment it’ll take to get anything done.
GO DEEPER
For Golden State, how untouchable is Brandin Podziemski?
The Warriors aren’t currently prepared to give Kuminga a max extension (like the five-year, $224-million deal Franz Wagner got from the Orlando Magic that will start at 25 percent of the cap) or anything that stretches too close to that $44.8 million annual salary, league sources said. There’s credible reason for Kuminga to believe he can play himself into that ballpark with another leap. The talent has flashed for long stretches. The upside remains immense. But Kuminga’s relatively limited track record and protection of restricted free agency gives the Warriors leverage and reasons for patience.
Golden State gave Jordan Poole a four-year, $123 million extension right before the trade deadline two Octobers ago and had to attach a protected 2030 first-round pick to offload that deal to Washington eight months later. The Warriors were living in the glow of the 2022 championship then. They aren’t now. There’s been a stronger message of patience and pragmatism from the front office as they rearrange their books into the future.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a reasonable middle ground — perhaps in the $30-ish million per season range as the deadline nears. Nobody can say for sure what will happen if Kuminga is presented a concrete, life-changing financial offer and the Warriors come to believe the deal will age well enough as the salary cap projects to skyrocket. There have been tentative extension discussions between the sides, league sources said, but a clear divide remains.
The poison pill provision is another smaller part of the overall calculus. If a player signs an extension and his team attempts to trade him before that extension comes into effect, the salary-matching gets complicated.
For the Warriors’ purposes, Kuminga’s outgoing salary would count as $7.6 million (what he will make next season). But for the acquiring team, the incoming salary would count as the average annual amount of the current season plus the extension. For example: If Kuminga signed a five-year, $150 million contract, his outgoing salary-matching amount this upcoming season would be $26.2 million, essentially making it impossible to find a workable deal, particularly in a world with the punitive first and second aprons.
The Warriors’ decision-makers believe their transactional flexibility will be a major weapon in the months and weeks leading up to February’s trade deadline, team sources said. They didn’t get a Paul George or Lauri Markkanen deal across the finish line, but have maintained control of their young players, most of their future first-round picks and have several midlevel contracts that make salary matching simpler.
If the right deal for the right player or players materializes, they believe they’ll be in position to pounce. Extending Kuminga or Moody would decrease some of that flexibility. It doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a Kuminga extension before the October deadline expires, but it’s all part of an evolving calculus as training camp nears.
(Photo of Kuminga: Rocky Widner / NBAE via Getty Images)
