Steve Kerr’s Assistant Exposes Jonathan Kuminga’s Selfish Nature That Ended His Warriors Career

Amid a campaign full of revenge arcs and Jonathan Kuminga testing his skills in Minnesota, the pot just keeps being stirred. We all knew and saw the moment the Golden State didn’t look golden enough for the 24-year-old, but now, we finally have the reasons noted down as to why.

“What I would tell him all the time is like, ‘You gotta do some of the things that you don’t want to do to do the things that you want to do,’” Warriors assistant Kris Weems told the San Francisco Chronicle in October, wrote Warriors beat writer Luca Evans. “And I don’t think he really understood that. Steve was asking, like, run the floor, get to the corner, and everything. But JK wasn’t always absorbing how important playing off the ball was for us.”

Not that the No.7 overall pick from the 2021 draft didn’t have success in Golden State. At 19, Kuminga became the second-youngest NBA champion in history by immediately winning the 2022 NBA title as a Warriors rookie.

A career-high 34-pointer in 2024 and a 30-point playoff performance against the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2025 also showed potential to be the dynasty’s next heir. There were moments that convinced everyone.

Until the Warriors could no longer ignore the “square-peg, round-hole” fit, Jonathan Kuminga’s inconsistency became impossible to overlook.

After appearing in 70, 67, and 74 games across his first three seasons in Golden State, his availability fell sharply to 47 games in 2024-25 and just 20 with the Warriors in 2025-26. Injuries played a major role, but so did the ongoing question of whether he fit the team’s motion-based offense.

The criticism centered on his comfort playing off the ball. While Andrew Wiggins eventually learned to use Stephen Curry’s gravity cutting, relocating, and attacking when defenses collapsed Kuminga often seemed more effective with the ball in his hands.

“Wiggs figured it out, even though Wiggs didn’t always understand why he was in certain places,” Warriors assistant Kris Weems said. “But he started to figure out the pin-ins, and how to be able to attack, using Steph as the decoy. JK just was like, ‘Just give me the ball, man.’”

For Golden State, simply giving Kuminga the ball was never a complete answer. He had productive stretches as a downhill scorer, but the Warriors needed more consistent off-ball movement, decision-making, and defensive engagement. In the end, his talent was never in doubt; the fit was.

The Warriors had to trade him to the Atlanta Hawks at the 2026 trade deadline, where he played just 16 games before moving to the Timberwolves. And, interestingly, Wolves coach Chris Finch has been able to use Kuminga the way Kerr hoped.

He has played all 5 games and has been averaging 13.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 3.0 assists; almost forging a role he couldn’t find, nor has he been consistent with, in the Bay Area.

“He’s doing everything we asked him to do,” Finch told reporters in Minnesota on Sunday, per Evans. “Or that he said he wanted to do when he came here about guarding, and defending, and hustle plays, that kind of stuff … and then he’s just really letting the ball come to him, trusting the offense and his teammates. He’s getting a lot of good looks ’cause the ball’s really moving, and he’s just playing within the flow.”

A change of scenery seems to have been working well for the former Warriors star. And considering that, for many people, “it takes a new situation and hearing the same things to be like, ‘oh,’” perhaps the change was well expected and inevitable anyway.