Usually, when a team is trying to trade a player, they will do whatever they can to hype up their value to make sure they can get the maximum return possible. Not so with the Golden State Warriors and Jonathan Kuminga.
Kuminga’s situation is one of the most bizarre in professional sports as he has yo-yo’ed in and out of the Golden State lineup over the past few years, taking turns being a regular part of the rotation and being iced out by head coach Steve Kerr.
After finally demanding a trade after missing several games, he was inserted back into the lineup after a season ending injury to Jimmy Butler. And as fate would have it, Kuminga scored 20 points in just 21 minutes in a loss to the Raptors.
But even that performance doesn’t mask the reality that all is not well in the Bay Area. In fact, at a press conference on Wednesday night, general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. made stunning comments about Kuminga, saying that there was no demand on the trade market for him.
“I’m aware of that. In terms of demands, when you make a demand there needs to be demand in the market. So we’ll see where that unfolds. But always with these guys, I tell them and work with them. We want to help people out, whether that’s JK or any player on our roster. So we’re good with that’s his wishes trying to figure that out, but we got to do what’s best for this organization and that’s what we’ll do,” Dunleavy said.
Dunleavy’s dismissive comments about Jonathan Kuminga should only raise more questions about what in the world has happened behind the scenes at Golden State to cause this much distrust and derision towards one of their own players. That’s what Austin Rivers was getting at last week when he hinted at knowing Kuminga’s side of the story in comments on a podcast last week.
When you’re willing to light a major trade asset on fire just to get in a dig at a press conference, you know something is irrevocably broken.
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