The Golden State Warriors (15-14) are losing some serious steam after starting the season hot. The Warriors have lost five of their last six games with the latest being a 115-113 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day.
These losses are only adding fuel to the fire of trade talks for another star to help Steph Curry. One player who has been in the trade rumors lately is power forward Jonathan Kuminga.
Kuminga has been at the center of rumored trade packages for a year. While many feel of Kuminga being traded by Golden State is inevitable, FanDuel Run It Back analysts and former Lou Williams and Chandler Parsons disagree.
Williams talked about his time with the Warriors in the past and the future: “I don’t think you trade him at this point. You’ve invested so much trying to develop this young talent and where do you go from [here]?
“You still have a lot of questions on unanswered with Steph Curry, what’s going to happen with Draymond Green. You’re going to build around those two guys and you have a pretty good building block right here in Jonathan Kuminga.”
Parsons went a little further as to he cannot see who would actually be worth trading Kuminga away for.
“You can’t trade him unless you get someone right now that can help this team win a championship right now. I don’t know who’s available that could possibly do that.
“I think Jonathan Kuminga gives them that comfortability, that luxury of knowing ‘okay when Steph and Draymond are done playing basketball, which is going to happen in the next two-three-four-five years whatever it is, at least you know you have this budding star who’s in the system, who you’ve drafted, been with us since day one, whose kinda our next guy up.”
Kuminga is in his fourth season in the league and is still developing physically. He took some modest years in his first two seasons learning under Curry, Green and Coach Kerr.
This past season, Kuminga took a step up by averaging 16.1 points per game shooting a field-goal percentage of 52.9%. He is averaging 15.4 points in a less efficient shooting year.
Kuminga is still young and has some time to develop, which makes him a great candidate because he has experience on a championship-winning team.
He possesses the physical tools to overpower opposing teams on both ends of the court. Kuminga could be an option for the Warriors to trade, but he has the most potential of all the young players on their team. It would be smart to let him go through the highs and the lows to get ready to take that next step.
Related Posts
