LAIE, Hawaii – As Warriors coach Steve Kerr continually preaches open competition in the starting lineup outside of Steph Curry, and presumably Draymond Green, fourth-year pro Jonathan Kuminga is looking to firmly establish his spot while seeking a massive payday.
Kuminga, for a two-month stretch last season, proved he can be relied upon to be the Warriors’ second scorer alongside Curry when he averaged 19.1 points per game from the end of January to the end of March. The majority of those games featured Kuminga as the Warriors’ power forward with Andrew Wiggins at the three and Draymond Green serving as a small-ball center.
That very well could be how Kerr sees things playing out again, with a handful of people vying to start alongside Curry in the backcourt. If Kuminga is in the starting lineup, though, the 21-year-old who turns 22 on Sunday believes he’s a small forward – not a power forward.
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“I’ve been on this team for three years. There is never a position I haven’t played on this team, so that isn’t really my biggest concern,” Kuminga said Tuesday after the first day of training camp. “At the end of the day I know I’m a small forward and I can play at the highest level. But just going forward it’s all about what the team wants you to do for them to win, to help them win.
“It don’t matter. Small forward or whatever, I’m just going to get better at it.”
The combination of Kuminga and Wiggins produced a minus-0.3 net rating last season with a 111.9 offensive rating and 112.2 defensive rating. Adding Green to the mix gave the trio a 10.9 net rating in 427 minutes with a 116.4 offensive rating and 105.5 defensive rating.
For Kuminga to cement himself as a serviceable small forward who can be trusted at the position consistently, he’ll have to take a major leap shooting the ball. His shot fell off in Year 3 from 3-point range after showing improvements the year prior.
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Kuminga was a 37-percent 3-point shooter his second season on 2.2 attempts per game. This past season, Kuminga averaged the same amount of threes per game, yet he dropped down to a career-low 32.1 percent.
“All summer I’ve been working on my threes,” Kuminga said. “Against defense, without defense, catch and shoot – just trying to get my catch-and-shoot percentage way higher because that’s going to help everybody. It’s going to open up the floor even more.
“I’ve been working on that, and that’s my main focus.”
Refining himself as a catch-and-shoot threat would be a major upgrade for a team that now is without Klay Thompson. Kuminga made 35.2 percent of his catch-and-shoot attempts last season. Only Moses Moody (34.7 percent) and Wiggins (34.2 percent) were worse. Plus, Kuminga had the lower catch-and-shoot 3-point percentage on the team at 32.8 percent.
Who starts next to Curry is the question everybody wants to know. How the frontcourt is sorted out, and if Kuminga’s self-assessment at small forward is correct, might be just as important.