SAN FRANCISCO — Jonathan Kuminga practiced without any issue on Wednesday and is considered probable for Golden State’s Thursday night game against the Sacramento Kings at Chase Center.
The recovery road for the fourth-year wing has been long and grueling. Kuminga, 22, suffered a severe ankle sprain on Jan. 4 and missed the next 31 straight games. It took him a couple weeks of scrimmaging after getting cleared for contact to reach the threshold of readiness required for the Warriors’ training staff.
During Kuminga’s rehab process, the Warriors reinvented themselves. They stumbled into the trade deadline before acquiring Jimmy Butler, who has saved their season. They’re 12-1 with Butler in the lineup and have surged from 11th to sixth in the West.
“He’s excited about playing, but he understands the circumstances,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “This is actually probably the hardest time to return to a team, when a team’s rolling. Because you don’t want to disrupt anything. But he’s obviously aware of that. We’ve talked about just coming in and playing as hard as he can for short bursts, because if he does that, he’s going to impact winning.”
Kuminga’s anticipated return, barring a setback during pregame warmups, is here at long last. He’s going to come off the bench and likely play on a minutes restriction — at least to start. And his role is going to look vastly different than it was before, when he was playing the best basketball of his career.
Before his injury, Kuminga strung together 17 consecutive double-digit scoring performances, including three 30-point games. Especially in games without Steph Curry, like on Dec. 5 against Houston, Kuminga had the ball in his hands to make plays from all three levels. He was making an impact defensively and on the boards while stretching the bounds of his offensive profile.
There won’t be nearly as much room for Kuminga to do that anymore, with Butler in the mix.
Butler is another option on the wing who can make plays, both on the perimeter and inside. He’s not a prototypically ball-dominant star, but he still soaks up possessions that may have featured actions for Kuminga otherwise.
Kerr has also committed to keeping Gui Santos in the rotation as a 3-and-D energy guy. With two star playmakers in Curry and Butler, Santos’ glue-guy skills become much more valuable.
Gary Payton II has also thrived recently, feeding off Butler’s rim pressure and providing some point-of-attack defense the Warriors lost by trading Andrew Wiggins. Payton and Santos both essentially play the same position as Kuminga, so it’s easy to see them jockeying for playing time.
“We’re in a really good groove right now, and obviously we want to incorporate him because of his ability and the things that he can provide that we don’t have,” Kerr said. “But it always has to click. That’s the beauty of basketball: it’s a five-man game. We’ve got to help him fit in to this current team, which is a completely different team than the one he left when he got injured.”
One difference in the Warriors that should aid Kuminga’s reintegration is the emergence of Quinten Post. The rookie center should complement Kuminga perfectly as a floor-spacer who draws opposing big men out of the paint, leaving the rim unprotected for Kuminga’s drives. They haven’t played a single minute together this season, a stat Kerr specifically noted.
“I think me and JK will be a great fit together,” Post said. “Just adds another athletic guy out there with size, length. I think he’s going to help us out on defense. And offensively, just somebody who puts a lot of pressure on the rim. Hopefully that leads to a lot of open shots for me.”
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Ultimately, the goal is to be able to play Kuminga in lineups with Butler, Curry and Draymond Green. The best teams want to play their best five players together as much as possible, particularly in crunch time. And Kuminga is certainly one of the Warriors’ best players.
Kerr will certainly experiment with that four-man combination and their minutes will be some of the most fascinating to watch in the last 17 games of the season.
Getting the best version of Kuminga will be imperative for the Warriors to make the leap from their current post to true contention. Just like he was entering the season, Kuminga remains the Warriors’ biggest X-factor — even if the team is vastly different.
Podziemski remains out
Brandin Podziemski didn’t practice on Wednesday and was ruled out for Thursday night’s game against Sacramento. He suffered a back injury in the first minute of last Thursday’s Nets game. The team is being cautious with him.
Like Kuminga in late December and early January, Podziemski was playing his best basketball before the injury.
Kerr, Curry nearing milestones
A win on Thursday would make Steve Kerr tied with Al Attles with 557 regular-season wins — first all-time in Warriors franchise history.
Curry, meanwhile, is expected to cross the 4,000 career 3-pointer mark against the Kings. He needs just two 3s to exceed the round-numbered total. Before Curry stepped into the league, no player had ever made 3,000 3s.
