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Kendra Andrews, ESPN
JONATHAN KUMINGA SCANNED the iPad in assistant coach Kris Weems’ hands before the Golden State Warriors tipped off against the visiting Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 6.
Kuminga, eyeing the night’s planned rotation and substitution patterns, searched the lists for his name. It wasn’t there. Inconsistent play had limited his minutes in head coach Steve Kerr’s 10-man rotation.
“I wasn’t going to play at all. Zero minutes,” Kuminga told ESPN. “I’ve been through it the past couple of years. I have been here before. So, this one time wouldn’t phase me.”
But with less than five minutes left in the third quarter and the Warriors down 77-66 against one of the league’s worst teams, Kerr turned to Kuminga. He played all 17 of the remaining minutes of the 110-106 win, finishing with 13 points on 6-for-6 shooting that included three highlight-reel dunks.
Kuminga has remained in the rotation ever since, providing a much-needed boost to an underperforming Golden State team. The third-year forward, who has scored in double digits in 13 straight games, isn’t alone. Kuminga, 21, is part of a younger core — including fellow 2021 lottery pick Moses Moody, 21, and the rookie duo of Brandin Podziemski, 20, and Trayce Jackson-Davis, 23 — that is playing a crucial role in helping navigate an inconsistent and rocky season in San Francisco.
At 16-17 and in 11th place in the Western Conference, the Warriors are still searching for a spark. Stephen Curry‘s play remains at an All-Star level, but Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney are off to slow starts. Draymond Green continues to serve an indefinite suspension. Gary Payton II, arguably Golden State’s best perimeter defender, missed 13 games with a right calf injury, and he is now dealing with a left hamstring issue that sources told ESPN will sideline him for several weeks.
All of it has forced Kerr to turn to — and increasingly trust — a group of younger players after nearly a decade of the franchise relying heavily on its veteran stars.
“We’ve all been going through certain lineups and certain substitutions, and that’s why you have young guys on the team,” Kuminga told ESPN.
“When things don’t go our way, us young guys have the older guys helping us. When things aren’t going their way, that’s why we’re here.”
WIN NOW AND invest in the future. That was the mentality Golden State owner Joe Lacob touted for two years as part of a “two timelines” approach that would seamlessly bridge the gap between the future Hall of Fame trio of Curry, Thompson and Green and a younger core that would continue the team’s winning ways.
That approach was short-lived following the Warriors’ 2021-22 NBA Finals victory over the Boston Celtics. James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick of the 2020 NBA draft who only played 60 games in two campaigns because of various injuries, was sent to the Detroit Pistons ahead of last season’s trade deadline. Jordan Poole, following his 2022 training camp altercation with Green, was traded to the Washington Wizards in July in a deal that brought in veteran guard Chris Paul.
But the Warriors now find themselves incorporating their current young players far sooner than designed. Kuminga and Moody were part of the initial timeline but never cracked the rotation during the 2022 title run. Podziemski and Jackson-Davis, the 19th and 57th picks, respectively, in June’s draft, were expected to have limited roles and spent time in the G League this season.
“There [was] a realization factor of who is ahead of you,” Podziemski told ESPN. “Play if I can but have the realization that it may take some time.”
Kerr tried to be patient during the first part of this season as veteran starters Curry, Thompson, Wiggins, Green and Looney shook off their rust. But that lineup — the team’s most common one — has struggled in the 133 minutes it has played together. The group has posted a minus-9.8 net efficiency, according to ESPN Stats & Information research; it is a stark contrast to the group’s plus-21.9 mark from last season.
After Green’s suspension was announced on Dec. 13 and the team was sitting at 10-14, Kerr switched things up by turning to Kuminga. Kerr said it “felt right to reward him” after Kuminga’s performance in the Dec. 6 win over the Trail Blazers.
Kerr benched Wiggins and started Podziemski for eight consecutive games last month. The coach shuffled the lineup once more ahead of Saturday’s home game against the Dallas Mavericks, sending Podziemski back to the bench for Paul. Looney, who had started 180 games since the beginning of the 2021-22 season, was replaced by Jackson-Davis.
“It’s not common to see young guys playing for the Warriors,” Podziemski said. “Teams are used to guarding our play style, meaning Steph and Klay, and then I feel like the elements that me, JK, Trayce and Moses bring, it’s something different. Other teams are like, ‘OK, wait — now they have this and that.'”
The two rookies have taken advantage of their playing time. Since their victory at Portland on Dec. 17, Golden State has a plus-28.7 net efficiency in the 83 minutes that both Jackson-Davis and Podziemski have shared the floor, per ESPN Stats & Info data.
Podziemski also has a plus-106 plus-minus this season, the best of any player on the Warriors, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
Since the Warriors’ home win over the LA Clippers on Nov. 30, Podziemski also has shot 25-for-60 on 3-pointers (42%), the best of any Warriors player with at least five attempts during that stretch.
Jackson-Davis has provided the team with a versatile defender who can protect the rim and offer more agility than Looney. Since Kerr began to switch up the lineup, Jackson-Davis already has scored in double digits in seven games with four double-doubles.
Kerr likened Jackson-Davis’ potential impact to that of Andrew Bogut‘s, the ex-Warriors center on the 2014-15 title team who Kerr called a “master of dribble handoffs and driving to the rim.”
“That’s something I want to expand on, the passing, just knowing where guys want to be and where to give them the ball,” Jackson-Davis said.
Despite remaining outside of the West’s play-in picture — Golden State is behind the Los Angeles Lakers for 10th place — the youngsters view themselves as part of the team’s long-term plans.
“I see [two timelines] for sure,” Kuminga said. “I’m not going to say we are going to be Steph and Klay or Dray, but I feel like we’ve gone through a lot to a point where we are going to make sure if there is an absence of anybody, it’s not going to show.”
KERR SAID THAT “there is a world where [the younger players] can start for the rest of the year.” But it’s a fluid situation, as evidenced by him switching up lineups.
Kerr added he is still in the process of deciding his “top nine players” for a steady rotation, which will include Green when he fulfills league and team conditions stemming from his suspension and is reinstated.
For now, Kerr’s tinkering has produced mixed results. In his initial change to the starting lineup, Kerr wanted more ballhandling while ensuring Curry or Paul would be on the floor at all times. The coach said it was an “easy choice” to start Podziemski — whom Kerr also called one of the team’s best perimeter defenders — in place of Wiggins, who registered a minus-101 plus-minus in 21 games as a starter, per ESPN Stats & Info.
With Kuminga and Podziemski as starters, the Warriors won a season-high five straight games then hit a three-game skid starting with a Christmas Day loss at the Denver Nuggets. The team was above .500 for the first time since mid-November, but the lineup’s defense was a major issue. The group had a 127.5 defensive efficiency — the second worst among all lineups with at least 90 minutes together, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
When Kerr again juggled the lineup ahead of Saturday’s matchup with the Mavericks, he moved Podziemski back to the bench for Paul while starting Jackson-Davis over Looney in an effort to improve the defense. It was this lineup that then snapped the losing streak with Tuesday’s 121-115 triumph over the visiting Orlando Magic.
“Young players who are trying to find their way, if they’re not in the rotation it’s tricky [to build trust],” Kerr said. “I try to understand everything those guys go through. Let’s offer these guys the environment every day to come in and learn and have fun and, hopefully, trust us.”
That process hasn’t always gone smoothly, including when Kuminga was benched last postseason after a string of poor performances. He was visibly frustrated during the second-round series against the Lakers after not playing in the first and fourth games and seeing less than four minutes of action in Games 5 and 6.
But a clear message was conveyed to him at the start of this season, as one team source told ESPN: “Pouting wasn’t going to do [Kuminga] any favors this year.”
It was a message also heard by other young players on the team, including Moody, who currently finds himself out of the rotation.
“When you’re not in the rotation as much, you have to develop some other stuff. It’s just one of those things you’ve got to do,” Moody told ESPN. “When you’re not in the rotation, sure, you can pick not to stay ready, but then, guess what? You’re not going to be ready. You’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep it together.”
Kuminga has taken it upon himself to be a leader for the Warriors’ young players, drawing on his own experience of inconsistency to help the team get back on track. It’s a different mindset for a player following his postseason benching.
“That’s what keeps me motivated. It keeps me patient every time. I have been through so much — not playing, then playing, then not playing,” Kuminga said. “Everything was just so inconsistent. That’s what I always try to tell them: Things are always going to change.
“At some point, they are going to want us to take this job. They are going to want us to help the older guys until it’s their time. Then we are here to continue the same legacy.”