The Golden State Warriors will now focus on building the best team they can this summer after being eliminated in the second round of the playoffs.
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On Wednesday, the Warriors lost in five games to the No. 6 seed Minnesota Timberwolves. The series did not go as planned for Golden State, as they were without their best player, Stephen Curry.
Curry missed most of the series due to a left hamstring strain, which damaged their chances of coming out of the series. Now the shift focuses on the summer, a summer in which a lot of change can transpire for the Warriors roster-wise.
One of the many ways the Warriors can go is by dealing their young forward, Jonathan Kuminga. Kuminga finished his fourth season in the league, all with the Warriors. However, this season was an odd one for the 22-year-old as he saw his playing time decrease throughout the season.
Kuminga has a ton of potential, but the expectation is he’ll play elsewhere next season.
The Athletic’s Anthony Slater and Marcus Thompson II shared that the Warriors and Kuminga could be heading towards a breakup in terms of a sign-and-trade.
“A reunion between the sides is still on the table, league sources said,” wrote Slater and Thompson.
“But both sides are expected to explore sign-and-trade scenarios, those sources said, which would open up the market and theoretically give Kuminga the contract and fresh start he’d desire while bringing the Warriors back rotation players of immediate value. The Warriors’ decision-makers believe they need more positional size across the board — center and otherwise.”
While a trade is more than likely, nothing is set in stone as of mid-May. A lot can and will happen between the two sides as they try to make a deal.
If not, they will look to move Kumngia, who did solidly for the Warriors in this playoff run. In eight games, the 22-year-old averaged 15.3 points per game, 2.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 0.5 steals while shooting 48.4 percent from the field and 40 percent from beyond the arc in 23.4 minutes of action.
After the playoff loss, Warriors owner Joe Lacob addressed Kuminga and his possible future in the Bay Area.
“There are certainly things he has to improve on, but he’s 22 years old,” Lacob said. “He’s got a hell of a lot of potential, and I would think he would be a part of our future plans. Now we’ll have to see how the market all shakes out. We have a lot of evaluating to do. Not me necessarily. But everybody — from coaching staff to basketball operations. We’ll kind of sit around and talk about how we want to construct the team for next year and what the situation is with respect to him.”
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