Till Friday night time in opposition to the Chicago Bulls, rookie ahead Jonathan Kuminga hadn’t performed a lot for the Golden State Warriors this season.
It wasn’t his fault he hasn’t been taking the court docket too typically. The No. 7 general choice within the 2021 NBA Draft was nursing an harm in October, and at simply 19 years previous, it was all the time going to be a steep climb for him to earn critical minutes. However to his credit score, Kuminga has apparently performed properly sufficient in observe of late that coach Steve Kerr felt he deserved a shot.
And versus Chicago, Kuminga was fairly stable! In 16 minutes of motion, he recorded eight factors, together with a couple of impressive dunks. These jams got here in rubbish time, so that they weren’t consequential, however Kuminga’s protection did have a significant influence. He locked up Bulls star DeMar DeRozan on a number of events, and demonstrated a degree of defensive depth that caught the attention of ESPN’s NBA Draft professional Mike Schmitz.
After the sport, Kerr reiterated that Kuminga was enjoying catchup after lacking most of coaching camp and the beginning of the season, however “over the past week, he is made large strides and we needed to reward him,” Kerr stated. “So long as he goes on the market and runs the ground, performs protection, takes care of the ball and passes like he did tonight, and we will proceed to offer him alternatives.”
That is a welcome signal for Warriors followers, although there are fairly a number of caveats in Kerr’s assertion — maybe a delicate reminder that 19-year-old rookies are usually very inconsistent, and it should not be considered as an instantaneous disappointment if Kuminga slips up and will get relegated again to the bench.
