Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga‘s agent, Aaron Turner, told ESPN that Kuminga is prepared to take the $7.9 million qualifying offer unless Golden State improves its current offers.
“There’s a lot of upside,” Turner said in an interview with “The Hoop Collective” podcast. “He wants to pick where he wants to go. So the QO is real for sure.”
The Warriors have presented Kuminga, 22, with three separate frameworks, as ESPN reported earlier this week. The most lucrative is a three-year, $75.2 million deal with a team option on the third season. It guarantees Kuminga $48.3 million in the first two seasons.
He is also being offered a two-year, $45 million deal with a team option on the second season and a three-year, $54 million deal without options. Kuminga, to this point of the negotiations, has declined everything put in front of him. He is requesting the Warriors turn the team option into a player option and he will sign it.
The Warriors have declined to put a player option in any offer to Kuminga and declined comment about where negotiations stand.
“If [the Warriors] want to win now, if you want a guy that’s happy and treated fairly who is a big part of this team, we believe, moving forward, you give him the player option,” Turner said. “You do lose a little of that trade value [giving that up]. But if it’s about the here and now, you give him that. You don’t get a perfect deal, but you get a pretty good deal and he gets to feel respected about what he gets and we all move on and worry about winning, helping Steph [Curry].”
The Warriors are the only NBA team this summer that has not signed a free agent. Less than two weeks until training camp, they have only nine players on their roster. The expectation is they will sign veterans Al Horford, De’Anthony Melton and Gary Payton II once the Kuminga domino falls, but the negotiations have been in a three-month gridlock.
If Kuminga signs the qualifying offer, he’d be relinquishing more than $40 million in guaranteed money over the next two seasons, but it would grant him his unrestricted free agency next summer and give him an inherent no-trade clause — a hefty price to control his own destiny.
“If JK wants to take it, it does have upside, right?” Turner said. “We’ve talked about that. You’re not getting traded. You’re going to have unrestricted free agency [next summer]. People are going to say, ‘Well, Aaron, there’s not going to be 10 or 12 teams [with cap space].’ Fine, there’ll be six teams with cap space for the clear-cut under-35 top wing on the market. So there’s a lot of upside.”
Kuminga has spent the summer exploring his market, including the big-picture opinions from those outside the Warriors organization. The Sacramento Kings (three years, between $63 and $66 million) and Phoenix Suns (four years, between $80 and $88 million) have been most aggressive in pursuing Kuminga. They haven’t been able to put together sign-and-trade offers to entice the Warriors to give up Kuminga.
He would return to a likely bench role with the Warriors, behind a Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and Horford frontcourt.
Golden State general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. told reporters before the draft in June that the team was in a “good spot” with Kuminga, but that hasn’t led to a deal.
“I’d like to figure something out sooner than later. That would be great,” Dunleavy said. “But I also acknowledge with restricted free agency these things can drag out a little bit and take some time. I think we feel pretty comfortable with who JK is as a player and what he can do for our organization, and it’s a main priority going into free agency.”
Warriors owner Joe Lacob flew to Miami to meet with Kuminga in August in an attempt to resolve the contract dispute, but it continues to drag deep into September. The hit to the Kuminga side is the Warriors giving him a player option on either the two-year or three-year contract offers. They’d also be willing to sign the two-year deal with the Warriors in that $45 million range if they let him keep the inherent no-trade clause, allowing him a say in where he plays next.
But the Warriors haven’t relented on that, either, requesting Kuminga waive the no-trade clause. Turner has said Kuminga would be willing to do a team option deal if the Warriors move the per year number up toward $30 million or take the current deals on the table if they include a player option. If not, they are threatening to take the qualifying offer, which would tank his trade value.
“Two years from now, if you want to keep him, you’ll have his Bird rights [even if you give him a player option],” Turner said. “You treat him good and you show him the plan, then maybe you keep him. [The player option contract] is not perfect, but I don’t think anybody can get everything they really want. If you ask JK, he wants Jalen Green‘s deal. He’s not getting that. He wants Jalen Johnson‘s deal. You’re not getting that.”
Source link
