The Golden State Warriors‘ offseason certainly hasn’t gone according to plan, as the Jonathan Kuminga saga continues to drag on even today. Kuminga chose to skip media day as well, and Stephen Curry was asked how concerned he was about this big distraction potentially impacting the Warriors’ 2025-26 season.
“I don’t frame it like that,” Curry said. “I think he’s going to get asked questions. To your point, you’re asking questions. Everybody’s going to ask questions about it. But what happens when I leave this microphone and we go in the locker room and us players talk? Like that’s going to be the make or break of how we kind of move into the year with the right frame of mind.
“So good news is you’ve been around long enough,” Curry continued. “Me, Draymond [Green], Jimmy [Butler], we’ve all been around long enough to know how to separate the business of it to the basketball of it. And those are two totally different areas. So, our job is to focus on the basketball part and not let it become something that gets in the way of how we approach every day.”
The Warriors have seen locker room issues impact their seasons in the past. There was tension behind the scenes during Kevin Durant and Jordan Poole’s final seasons with the team, but this situation is a bit different. Durant and Poole both seemed to have personal issues with Draymond Green, but there is nothing personal when it comes to Kuminga. The 22-year-old isn’t the first player to be embroiled in a contract standoff with a team and won’t be the last either.
“Negotiations are hard, we all know that,” Curry stated. “The idea of everybody’s situation is a little different. Everybody can come up with whatever narrative they want to. It’s how business kind of goes. Some things are pretty straightforward; some things aren’t. This is definitely in the aren’t conversation or category.
“But when he comes and he’s here, he should be a professional and do what exactly what he expects to do and take advantage of his opportunities to help us win,” Curry added. “Like everybody who’s in the locker room, that’s what you’re committed to do. And so, I don’t have any concerns that he’ll approach it that way. And that’s what we expect. “
Kuminga, who didn’t show up for minicamp either, currently has four options to pick from. There is the one-year, $7.9 million qualifying offer for which the deadline is Oct. 1. Apart from that, there is a two-year, $45 million deal and a three-year, $75.2 million deal, with both having a team option for the final year. The only deal without a team option is for three years and $54 million.
Kuminga, who averaged 15.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game in 2024-25, clearly isn’t a fan of any of those offers. It has been reported that he would like a player option instead of a team option, but the Warriors don’t seem too keen on that. It has been a messy situation and one you ideally would want to avoid when the goal is to win a championship.
Curry, who averaged 24.5 points, 4.4 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game in 2024-25, believes the Warriors can go toe-to-toe with anybody in the West when healthy A happy Kuminga certainly wouldn’t hurt their chances of winning, but on the flip side, you have to be very careful with contracts now in this apron era. All it takes is a couple of bad ones to completely cripple a team and close its title window.
