Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga has lost faith in coach Steve Kerr: Sources

After sitting for the final 18 minutes of Thursday night’s loss to the Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga has lost faith in coach Steve Kerr, and the 2021 lottery pick no longer believes Kerr will allow him to reach his full potential, sources close to Kuminga tell The Athletic, adding another layer of turbulence to an already complex Warriors season.

“(Thursday night) was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” one of the sources said.

Kuminga had another strong performance Thursday night with 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting, four rebounds and four assists and was a team-high plus-6 in just 19 minutes of action — a continuing trend of the 6-foot-7 wing’s athleticism and evergrowing shot-making serving as a catalyst for a Warriors team desperate for the rim pressure and youth he provides.

He converted an and-1 finish with six minutes left in the third quarter, and Kerr substituted him out of the game 12 seconds later, along with Klay Thompson and Kevon Looney. While Thompson returned to start the fourth and Looney came back in with just under eight minutes left, Kuminga did not.

“He was playing great,” Kerr said of Kuminga after the game. “His normal time to go back in would have been around the five-, six-minute mark (of the fourth). (Andrew Wiggins) was playing great, we were rolling, were up 18, 19, whatever it was. So we just stayed with him. Then at that (later) point, it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. He had been sitting for a while. So I stayed with the group that was out there, and obviously, we couldn’t close it out.”

The Warriors were down 85-84 when they took Kuminga out of the game. To close the third quarter, the group that included Wiggins and didn’t include Kuminga helped build a 13-point lead that grew into an 18-point lead with six minutes left in the fourth. Kerr never went back to Kuminga and the Warriors went on to blow that lead, the fourth time this season they’ve let at least an 18-point cushion turn into a loss.

Kuminga and Wiggins are the Warriors two biggest wings — and their best theoretical chance to shore up a leaky perimeter defense that has the 16-18 Warriors tumbling to 20th in defensive rating.

But they haven’t worked together. In 131 minutes together, Kuminga and Wiggins are a cumulative minus-66. Kuminga replaced Wiggins in the starting lineup 11 games ago, but Wiggins’ steady involvement in the rotation has still led to some lower-than-expected minute nights for Kuminga, even while performing well.

“Their numbers are not good together, frankly,” Kerr said late last month. “They’re very redundant. So the tape and the numbers haven’t been great. But we recognize, too, that we have a level that we need to get to really compete at the highest level. And if those two guys can coexist on the floor, it does give us an elevated athleticism and elevated potential. But we have to find the right combination of people around those two.”

This problem dates back to last postseason. Kuminga was a crucial part of the Warriors’ climb to the sixth seed in the final two months while Wiggins was away from the team tending to a personal matter. But when Wiggins returned for the first game of the playoffs, Kuminga faded from the rotation.

That’s no longer the case. Kuminga has worked his way into a larger part of the picture — he has played in every game in which he’s been active this season — but still finds himself watching from the sideline during some of the season’s pivotal moments. That included Christmas when he was benched for the final three minutes of a loss in Denver and voiced some confusion to our Marcus Thompson postgame.

“Sometimes, I come out the game not knowing what I did,” Kuminga said. “And that messes with my head. It’s like, ‘What they want me to do?’ I can pass and I can do different s—.”

Now, an erosion of trust from player to coach is apparent, a decaying partnership for two men in Kuminga and Kerr whom Golden State needs to co-exist for the future.

Kuminga, the 21-year-old taken with the No. 7 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, has started to blossom this season with increased opportunity. Kerr made Kuminga the full-time starter on Dec. 14 against the LA Clippers following the indefinite suspension of Draymond Green. In those 11 starts, Kuminga has averaged 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists while shooting 56.6 percent from the field in 25.5 minutes per game.

The frontcourt rotation mix will only get more crowded and complicated when Green returns from his suspension at some point relatively soon. The Feb. 8 trade deadline is a month away, and this floundering Warriors team must decide how to proceed with an expensive roster not currently getting it done.