The Golden State Warriors selected Jonathan Kuminga with the No. 7 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. At the time, it made perfect sense. Kuminga was installed as a pillar of the Warriors' two-timeline approach; he was a talented young project who could develop slowly while Stephen Curry and Golden State's dynastic core remained in championship contention.
It worked, to a certain extent. The Warriors won the 2022 NBA championship, giving Kuminga his first ring. At 20 years old, Kuminga is already a rotation player for a perennial winner. The Warriors have barely scratched the surface of his ceiling and there's reason to believe Kuminga has another sizable leap in production in his future.
That said, it's almost guaranteed that the Golden State front office secretly wishes it had a mulligan. Kuminga doesn't necessarily qualify as a bad pick, but he certainly wasn't the best possible outcome for a Warriors team with the rare luxury of making three consecutive lottery picks with their title-contending window still wide open.
Across two NBA seasons, Kuminga has averaged 9.9 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.9 assists in 18.8 minutes on .519/.353/.671 splits. He has appeared in 137 games with 28 starts. Here are three reasons why the Warriors — and, frankly, Kuminga — would have been better off in an alternate timeline.
Reason Warriors regret Jonathan Kuminga pick: Chemistry issues
The Warriors' two-timeline approach is largely considered a failed experiment despite the 2022 championship. The Curry-led core can still contend at full strength, but the Warriors made it more difficult — especially last season — by relying on young, inexperienced players instead of the seasoned veteran role players who defined the Warriors' three title runs between 2015 and 2018.
Draymond Green's relationship, or lack thereof, with younger members of the Golden State locker room has been a hot-button topic. The now-infamous Jordan Poole punch fractured the locker room and sent last season into a downward spiral, but Green was too important not to re-sign. The Warriors handed him a $100 million contract and sent Poole packing, a vote of confidence in Draymond as a player and as a leader.
Poole isn't the only young player Green has struggled to maintain a relationship, though. On a podcast appearance earlier this summer, NBC Sports' Monte Poole (no relation to Jordan) illuminated the stunted relationship between Green and Kuminga.
"It's a problem and it can only be fixed by Draymond, who has to commit himself to doing that. Honestly, at this point, we're not sure that he's ready to do that. They've signed him to a new contract, which implies that they believe he can and will."
This is mostly a Draymond problem, but as the Warriors' free agent dealings proved, Green is too essential to discard. Golden State has to cater to Green's competitive aspirations and cagey leadership presence, which could mean Kuminga is simply never going to feel at home in the Warriors' locker room.
Reason Warriors regret Jonathan Kuminga pick: Wasted year of Steph
It's a bit difficult to mount the 'Kuminga wasted Steph's prime!' argument in the face of the 2022 championship run, but hear me out: the Warriors should be good enough to contend every season. The Warriors finished the 2023 season as the No. 6 seed and were eliminated in unceremonious fashion by the No. 7 seed Lakers. That is flatly unacceptable for a team rostering prime Stephen Curry.
Any time your franchise is blessed with a genuine all-time talent — especially one that has hung four banners in the rafters — it is paramount to maximize that player's prime years. Golden State owes it to Steph to go all-out every season until he's done. Last season was a crystal clear example of the downside to the two-timelines approach, which sacrificed short-term depth to cultivate the next crop of Warriors stars for a post-Steph future.
Well, news flash. Kuminga and his fellow 2021 lottery pick Moses Moody are quality players, but neither is a foundational pillar upon which the next decade of Golden State basketball can be built. The Warriors failed to draft stars and also failed to draft ready-now contributors. Kuminga quickly emerged as a rotation piece, but it has often felt like Steve Kerr is trying to jam a round peg into a square hole.
Kuminga receives reps as a small-ball five, but his lack of rim protection and awareness tanks the Warriors' defense. As a four, his lack of offensive feel prevents Kuminga from consistently impacting winning. He's an explosive driver and respectable (if not great) shooter, but Kuminga is prone to tunnel vision on drives and he doesn't always compute with the Warriors' movement-heavy, willfully complex offense.
It's a questionable basketball fit and Kuminga has made his desire for a bigger role public. Meanwhile, the Warriors phased him out of the postseason rotation and struggled to find minutes for a lottery pick when the stakes were highest. Kuminga would have been better off on a rebuilding team with a long runway for Kuminga to experiment and learn. The Warriors would have been better off selecting a more polished contributor or trading the pick for a veteran winner.
Reason Warriors regret Jonathan Kuminga pick: Better options
The final reason is the simplest reason, and it's a chronic issue for every NBA Draft participant. There's almost always a better player who slipped through the cracks. Kuminga has been a perfectly solid player overall, but he's simply nowhere close to the best player who was available to Golden State in the No. 7 slot.
Every draft is a crapshoot. There are too many unknowable factors to count, and even the smartest teams whiff on occasion. That said, there were valid concerns about the Kuminga pick in the moment — concerns that have actualized in the years since.
Kuminga was extremely young when the Warriors picked him. It's generally smart to bet on youth, especially when that youth is combined with outlier athleticism and genuine flashes of skill. But, again, the Warriors are in the middle of their competitive timeframe. Picking a low-floor, high-ceiling prospect in need of several years of slow-burn development wasn't the right decision.
Let's take a brief gander as the names called after Kuminga on 2021 draft night. Franz Wagner was the No. 8 pick to Orlando. He just won gold at the FIBA World Cup and man, would he look awesome in Warriors blue and gold. Wagner is the ultimate modern wing, 6-foot-10 with slick handles, a dynamic slashing game, advanced passing instincts, and all-world defense. He'd be the Warriors' third or fourth-best player next season. Kuminga, not so much.
We can also point to No. 16 pick Alperen Sengun and No. 17 pick Trey Murphy III as obvious misses. Sengun would've imbued the Warriors frontcourt with a potent blend of old-school scoring and team-boosting creation skill. Murphy is one of the NBA's best shooters and a rangy wing defender at 6-foot-9, with breakout potential to boot.
All three would comfortably go before Kuminga in a re-draft. There's lingering star upside with Kuminga, who still possesses a rare blend of youth, strength, explosiveness, and shooting touch, but he's far away from proving himself in a role that's more than complementary. Wagner, Sengun, and Murphy could all credibly start and produce for the Warriors next season, and that includes the playoffs.
