Golden State Warriors star Jonathan Kuminga was recently spoken of glowingly by his former All-Star teammate Draymond Green following his well-documented early-season funk.
Warriors: Draymond Green commends Jonathan Kuminga for overcoming slump
As Anthony Slater of The Athletic shared on X, Warriors star Draymond Green reflected on the maturity Kuminga has exhibited in accepting a bench role and how he’s turned that into his best three-game stretch of the young campaign so far, saying (h/t ClutchPoints’ Jack Slater):
“I don’t want him to love coming off the bench. He believes he’s a superstar; I believe he can be a superstar,” Green said of Kuminga after Saturday’s game. “And so as long as you believe that, you shouldn’t be okay with coming off the bench. But how you respond is important. You can respond with sulking, or you can just go do what it is that you can do to help the team win and be great, and that’s what he’s doing.
“So not only should we talk about his play, but we should talk about his maturity because last year he wouldn’t have handled that well,” Green continued. “But another year of growth and maturity, he’s taking it in stride and he’s had his best three games yet this season.”
Kuminga has righted the ship behind Sixth Man of the Year-caliber play
The DRC native got off to a sluggish start to the season, scoring a combined 24 points through his first three outings on a poor 33.3 percent shooting from the field and an 11.1 percent connect rate from three-point range. His underwhelming play even resulted in trade rumors surfacing around his name. The Warriors were reportedly “more willing than ever” to move him for Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler.
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Since then, the 22-year-old has been on a tear, earning nearly eight additional minutes per game while coming off the bench, and turning that into 18.7 PPG, 4.3 RPG, and one steal per contest on 51.4 percent shooting from the field and 42.9 percent shooting from deep. Green knows how important it is to believe in one’s self in the league in order to remain productive. While being relegated to the second unit has been met with the right approach by Kuminga, the Michigan State product also does not want his athletic young teammate to get complacent.
Demotion is never a good thing. Nevertheless, Kuminga appears to be on the right track toward earning his starting spot back, or at the least, doing what he’d do in that capacity with the second five moving forward.
