Getty Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga looks on during a summer league bout with the San Antonio Spurs.
If ever there was a team that looked destined to absolutely smash the summer league, it was the group that the Golden State Warriors sent to Las Vegas. With former lottery picks Jonathan Kuminga, James Wiseman and Moses Moody leading the way, Dub Nation was rightfully anticipating a show at the NBA 2K23 Summer League.
However, Golden State’s golden trio hasn’t always lived up to their billing a week-plus into their Sin City stay. All three have had big moments, to be sure, but for every high there have been head-scratching lows.
Case in point: the Warriors’ opening contest against the Knicks, which saw Kuminga score just four points on 2-of-10 shooting while committing five turnovers. The former No. 7 pick’s performance was so bad that one of his All-Star teammates, Draymond Green, made a point to spotlight it on the July 14 episode of his podcast.
“I’m going to say this publicly because I said it to his face,” Green said. “I thought Jonathan Kuminga was so, so, so bad in the game that I went to… I thought he was very, very bad. He didn’t look engaged.”
Ouch.
Green Drops the Hammer
It didn’t help that Green had made a special trip to Vegas and the Thomas & Mack Center to see Kuminga and Co. dominate. Instead of showing out for his vet, though, and being the player who helped the Dubs win a championship, Kuminga fell flat.
“I was disappointed,” Green said. “When my OGs came to see me in Summer League, I’m bouncing off the wall. Your OGs are there. You want to destroy whoever’s in front of you because your OGs are there. It just didn’t feel like he had the pop. Because if you’ve got the pop, there is no one in Summer League that can touch you.”
Of course, Green wasn’t the only one who was disappointed. For his part, Kuminga hinted that the performance may have been the worst game of his life. However, he also maintained that it was little more than a blip on the radar.
“I mean I didn’t really worry about that game. All I worry about is just coming here, helping my teammates win these games and helping my coaches to win these games, and I think that was my motivation.”
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Kuminga Turned It Around in a Big, Bad Way
It didn’t take long for Kuminga to once again look like a future All-Star. During the Dubs’ second game against the Spurs, the 19-year-old scored 28 points and grabbed seven boards. Then, in Game No. 3 versus the Celtics, he fell just one point shy of a 30-piece.
Green wasn’t surprised by the turnaround.
“Sure enough, he bounced back the next game and showed that,” Green said. “Like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got the pop. There’s nobody in Summer League that can guard me!’ …His next two he showed why he’s the No. 7 pick in the draft. He shows why there’s so much belief and excitement around him for this organization, why there’s a belief that with the losses in free agency that he’ll fill that spot going into next year.”
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