SAN FRANCISCO – In both jersey number and responsibility, Jonathan Kuminga played the part of No. 1 option at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday night.
It was not so much a Hollywood audition as it was a temporary role hoisted upon a willing recipient. The 23-year-old forward was the one with the ball in his hands, dictating actions, making decisions.
With Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler and Al Horford all sitting out of the Warriors’ preseason game against the Lakers, Golden State needed a dynamic scorer, and Kuminga obliged.
Kuminga scored 13 points on 5 of 8 shooting, overwhelming defenders at the rim with his athleticism, and peppering in a slick catch-and-shoot jumper from the short corner for three points.
After a summer-long saga that saw his agent Aaron Turner embark on a media tour espousing the individual talents of a client forced to play within the Warriors’ system, Sunday’s game provided Kuminga his first opportunity of the preseason to be The Guy.
As with Kuminga’s entire career, the good and the negative were equally represented, and perhaps nothing displayed the duality of Jonathan Kuminga quite like a half-minute sequence in the second quarter.
Kuminga was splayed out on the floor after Lakers reserve Jake LaRavia had buckled him with a hesitation move midway through the quarter.
There were more than a few “oohs” and “ahhs” that reverberated from the Lakers crowd, and plenty of snickers on Sunday night.
Twenty seconds later, nobody was laughing.
A streaking Kuminga had received a pass from Draymond Green at midcourt, taken two dribbles to size up LaRavia, and made his move.
Kuminga elevated, switched the ball from his right to his left hand, and threw down a poster dunk.
Teammates Curry and Horford, watching in street clothes from the bench, looked on in equal parts disbelief and amazement. The team’s youngest player followed suit.
“It kind of caught me off guard,” Will Richard, 22, said. “But I knew he had that in his bag.”
Those 30 seconds were the perfect encapsulation of Kuminga’s night.
He also had six assists – his pass-first mentality apparently a trend – and was a willing distributor while operating in the mid-post.
“He’s done that in scrimmages, and he’s seen the floor well,” Kerr said. “He’s been making some really nice reads, and that’s a part of his game that he’s improved, for sure.”
But there were also five turnovers in just 22 minutes, sometimes trying to do a little too much in a crowd. Brandin Podziemski, who played a lead guard role Sunday, made sure to emphasize that not all of those giveaways were Kuminga’s fault.
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“We did a poor job of giving JK space when he had it in the post, whether it was off an iso or a set play,” Podziemski said.
His shot selection? Still not perfect, with the most baffling attempt being a pull-up 3-pointer that he had no business taking, but he made more than he missed. And the number of rebounds? Zero.
It contained echoes of his series against Minnesota, when Kuminga averaged 24.3 points per game against one of the league’s top defenses after Curry exited the series following Game 1.
With Kerr adamant that the veterans will likely only play between 60 and 70 games, Kuminga will have more chances to play the role of top option this season, even with his future still murky considering he can be traded after Jan. 15.
But should – or perhaps, when – he receives those opportunities, Sunday night showed that the Warriors will have plenty to love and some to loathe when he’s thrust into the spotlight.
