Golden State Warriors power forward Jonathan Kuminga has until October 1 to make a decision on his $7.9 million qualifying offer for the 2025-26 season.
Talks between Kuminga’s representatives and Golden State over a new long-term deal for the restricted free agent have been icy all summer.
The 6-foot-8 athlete, a solid downhill player with an erratic jumper, seems to have fallen out of favor with Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.
Jonathan Kuminga’s fraught 2024-25 season
He was even squeezed out of Kerr’s rotation entirely, for reasons that didn’t honestly make much basketball sense in terms of need, at the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason. Injuries forced Kerr’s hand, and the 22-year-old Kuminga quickly reminded his coach why he’s still so valuable on a team led by three future Hall of Famers who are all 35 or older.
Shams Charania and Anthony Slater of ESPN report that the most recent Warriors offer was a three-season, $75.2 million deal with a team option in 2027-28.
Inside the stalemate between Jonathan Kuminga and the Warriors as training camp nears
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— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) September 15, 2025
Last summer, Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report indicated that Kuminga had been seeking a full maximum contract extension, which would have compensated him to the tune of a $35 million annual deal.
“Jonathan Kuminga is entering the final year of his rookie deal where the word around the league from various sources is that Kuminga and his representation are looking for a full max extension, which as we just talked about with Brandon Ingram and Jamal Murray and whoever,” Fischer said. “If you’re not an absolute All-Star, Scottie Barnes type of guy for Toronto, Lauri Markkanen for Utah you know, Trae Young for Atlanta back in the day, because look at what happened to Trae Young and Atlanta since then, it’s really hard to get that number.”
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Per Slater (who was writing for The Athletic at the time), Golden State had only been open with paying Kuminga “just” $30 million a year.
Now, with Kuminga a restricted free agent, the offers are a bit lower than that, with Golden State in possession of far more leverage than they had enjoyed last year.
Kuminga’s agent, Aaron Turner, recently noted that the 22-year-old former lottery pick would be open to the three-year framework the Warriors recently proposed if the deal paid Kuminga in the vicinity of $30 million. Golden State’s most recent reported deal was a three-season, $75.2 million offer.
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During a new interview on ESPN’s “The Hoop Collective” podcast, Turner revealed that the control afforded Kuminga by taking the qualifying offer made it a very real option on the board still.
“There’s a lot of upside,” Turner said. “He wants to pick where he wants to go. So the QO is real for sure.”
Turner went on to advocate for Kuminga being given a player option in the last year of his deal, rather than the current team option offered at the end of said $75.2 million offer.
“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].”
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