Explain One Play: Warriors rookie Jonathan Kuminga shows NBA level defense and offense in his real debut
Not bad for the youngster
A list of all Explain One Play articles and videos is at The new Explain One Play index.
Here’s a look at the first real non-garbage time NBA minutes that Warriors rookie Jonathan Kuminga played, in the 2021.11.12.CHI-GSW game. He showed NBA level offense and defense, and he might be able to play some backup minutes as a switching big man and simple offensive playmaker.
Co-starring Stephen Curry with the hardest small man screens in the NBA, Andre Iguodala with advice on switching and capitalism, Draymond Green with an even louder pep talk, Jordan Poole with a jump in vain. Also with Zach Lavine and Demar DeRozan, two excellent players who mostly can’t take advantage of Kuminga’s inexperience.
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“He just saw too many zero’s...” Trying to split kab00m and gl0ve.
I guess this one is more of an Explain One Play[er], huh?
I'm pretty excited for how Kuminga is progressing. In his previous (garbage-time) NBA playtime, he's looked timid and all too ready to chuck up outside jumpers that aren't going in at a good rate. This time, we got to see him defend some quality players and (aside from falling for the pump fake on his first possession) he did really well. Not easy to force DeRozan into giving the ball up (with the shot clock running low!) or bother him into a long-midrange miss when he wanted to drive.
Then on offense it was great to see the rook drive to the basket, something that he did well in Summer League but hadn't gotten the chance to do against real NBA competition yet. I love that the team got him going with the simple inverse PnR with Steph—and credit to 00, he had the quickness and the handle to get around guys when they tried to help or recover to him. Seems like his aggressiveness continued into garbage time when he kept driving rather than just taking shots. He did have one wide-open 3pt attempt off a Bjelica drive-and-kick, which he took and clanked—but I don't mind as that sure looked like "a shot created [that] must be taken".
The parts I didn't really catch during the actual game were the communication—him pointing to ensure switches and stuff like that. Maybe I'm imagining things but it looks to me like he may even have called out to Porter to ensure he knew about the cross-switch. Oh, and I didn't see how the mixup on the rebound happened; the best my mind could process in the moment was, "oops, we're all out of position after an offensive rebound" which is, of course, typical. That sort of mixup is unfortunate but not something that'll hold him out of games, because pretty much everyone does it sometimes.
Honestly impressed with how both Kuminga and Moody are playing already. Kerr and the coaching staff must be very pleased, but it's only getting harder to find playing time for all the guys on this team who can contribute. We'll see about Klay and Wiseman when they're back from injury, but right now it feels like the entire roster should play every game.