Anyone else find Slaters style slightly off putting now that hes with ESPN. Hes kinda like a talking head rather than a beat writer. For the record i thought the Kuminga piece was dumb.
Los Tigres del Norte are yuge in Latin America and even parts of Europe. In their heyday they were selling out stadiums. Closest comparison to an English speaking band would probably be someone like Journey but with slightly more longevity (although they are now playing the Casino circuit). Unlike Curry they are well past their prime and honestly you go to their concerts for the nostalgia factor because the voice is gone. They are also proud San Josean transplants although theyve been living in the Bay almost as long as ive been alive.
Gui reminds me most of Luis Scola, incredible motor, not great lateral quickness on defense and not the greatest FT shooter. Scola was bigger and had a mid range, but Gui seems better from long range. Both are equally crafty around the basket. If he can have Scola's career that'd be a coup for the Dubs.
The San Antonio Spurs and forward Jeremy Sochan have agreed on his release to allow the 2023 All-Rookie team member to become a free agent, sources tell ESPN. Sochan is expected to decide among multiple interested teams.
He was kinda a PG? Interesting. Was he any good as a playmaker? I see he has 3.7 APG career but he's listed as a PF. (He's 6'8", listed at 230 lbs. per BBRef.) I haven't seen enough of him for an eye test.
A few numbers: His minutes have been cut in half this season, so he only plays 12.8 mpg. He gets 8 TRB/36 mins career. But he can't shoot from distance (career 3-point shooting 28.7% and 25.7% this season). FT% career 72.3%, down to 68.8% this season — not so good.
He wasn't really a pg....but was more of one than anyone else was for them. Not really ideal for developing your rookie unicorn big (wemby). But like JTA, pretty good at a lot of things...but not great at any of them.
Anyone know if there's a site that breaks down assists by "type"? It would be interesting to see assists (secondary assists, etc.) via drive and kick versus passing out of a double versus a dribble hand-off, etc.
Awww, dammit. I know he and I had our differences (I’m sure I annoyed him about as much and as often as he did me) but I really enjoyed 98% of his posts and his unique humor and style. Really hope he comes back some day…
> They blamed Kuminga's agent Aaron Turner and those around Kuminga, team sources said, for prioritizing and working "on the wrong things" away from the facility, routing his career down an incorrect path.
I mean we (well, me at least) all thought that when watching those offseason workout videos but assumed there was much more going on we didn't see and gave them the benefit of the doubt. Turns out it was as simple as that.
I think it is unstated in this article but likely true that the owner of the team that drafted you constantly pumping you up as a future great (and undercutting people in the organization who were trying to convey different expectations) would contribute significantly to an inflated sense of basketball worth. I can't put it all on Turner, hell even Dunleavy is quoted in this article as calling Kuminga a "cornerstone" at one point which isn't a great look for him if that was a genuine opinion and not a relaying of Lacob's opinion.
Also glad that this brings back up that the Pacers supposedly offered a lottery pick for Kuminga in 2023 back when I was hoping he'd be traded after his imo selfish playoff behavior and soft trade request, I was unable to find the source that reported that at the time (was probably Slater given this report).
People may not remember but imo the first red flag for Kuminga was in his rookie season when he rebelled against getting sent down to the G-League for assignment by playing an incredibly low effort and detached game for Santa Cruz. I remember watching those G-League games for him and Moody back then and feeling bad for his teammates about how selfish (imo) Kuminga's on court behavior was. Warriors called him back up after that because it was clear he was going to get nothing out of that experience.
EDIT: It was the one regular season game he played, he played a few Showcase Cup games earlier in the season but I think he felt like he was above the G-League by the time he got sent down again, hence the outburst and only playing one game down there.
We've never heard reports of him running in the offseason leagues. Just videos of him scoring on defenders a foot shorter than him in a static training environment.
Contrast that with Moody, JK's contemporary. Summer before this past, Moses was running in the offseason 5-on-5s with Looney and playing 3-on-3 with guys like KD. I remember he was defending KD in the latter runs (and vice versa), and it's hard to find a tougher challenge for a wing. KD got his but Moses didn't back off a bit. And this past summer, we saw videos (the link was posted at DNHQ) of MM working with a specialist on fundamentals like footwork, handling, and getting past a defender. Respect.
The men belong to a musical group called Los Tigres del Norte, a homegrown band from San Jose that is well known in the international scene. They were recently honored and given the keys to the city of San Francisco.
There was plenty of blame to go around. Diabate went absolutely out of his mind, way beyond a shove. He had to be dragged away by his guys. As jaxfor3 says, Beef Stew got off easy considering he left the bench to stir the stew — renewing the beef just when the initial fight was getting under control.
And Miles Bridges deserves to be suspended for being Miles Bridges. (OK, I'm being facetious about that — sort of.)
And then expressed the opposite of remorse… Dray would have been expelled from the league permanently, and Stewart list of priors isn’t thaaat much shorter than Dray’s
Kuminga is clearly not the most cerebral player but have to think Turner and Lacob unnecessarily fed his ego and turned him against one of the best coaches of all time. Shame.
Feels like Lacob needs to learn at least one of a couple lessons. Don’t override your basketball people if they are good at their jobs. If a player says they want to be an all time great but haven’t already developed the basketball skills of one, and won significant games along the way, they probably have a minuscule chance at accomplishing that later in life: lack of basketball IQ & fundamentals isn’t potential beyond middle school.
Billionaires don’t seem to learn lessons, unless it affects their net worth, which, say what you will about Lacob’s decision making as an owner (and I have a lot to say), the team is worth now more than ever. He’s going to keep getting high on his own supply until that changes, and maybe even beyond that.
There are no guarantees but maybe with better decisions by Lacob (like staying out of the way of the FO he hired), we'd be in a better position for a 5th championship, which would be money in the bank for him.
It’s entirely possible that Steph would have his fifth ring already. The Alex Caruso trade alone, where it seems Kuminga was a sticking point in the negotiations, would’ve made us that much better and OKC that much worse. This is to say nothing of the drafting. Could’ve been enough, but that’s a counterfactual, I know.
This article sums it all up. I think it will leave everyone feeling confirmed in their (different) theories about the Kuminga saga.
Interesting details about
* Other coaches wanting Wagner while Lacob and Atkinson wanting Kuminga.
* Re-confirms that Lacob didn’t exactly veto the Caruso-Kuminga trade but Lacob’s attachment to Kuminga cast a dark shadow over all team moves.
* And more details about how JK refused to play in games because he didn’t want to look bad.
If you watch my past videos, Kerr *did* run a lot of plays for Kuminga on offense. JK just wasn’t very good at them. Kuminga and Wiseman statistically and objectively hurt the team when they played, so there was always this awful conflict of “do we invest in the high picks” or “do we try to win while Steph is a star”.
Will JK be a star? He’s so young and talented that it’s still possible, and there are no more excuses left for him. Still… I just can’t shake the feeling that if JK had approached his time like Gui Santos did, how it could have all been different.
And in the end, JK earned tens of millions of dollars playing basketball, which is a lot more success than most of us will ever have. If he’d landed in a different place, like say Jalen Green did, he would have made even more money. So JK’s approach was very successful to maximize JK’s short term income.
But that’s not the kind of thing I want to root for as a *Warriors* fan. Go in peace, JK. Time for me to start worrying about Kristaps Porzingis’s health.
Jonathan Kuminga now joins a group of former decent GSW draft picks who have not worked in well with the team for a variety of reasons... and many went on to have good careers. All with over 500 total NBA game appearances.
Did not include names who were moved on in trades for comparable players.
Keith/Jamal Wilkes
Gus Williams
Chris Webber
Latrell Sprewell
Lesser names:
Lester Conner
Mickael Pietrus
Gilbert Arenas
Marco Belinelli
There may be more that I do not recall.
My guess is that other franchises could come up with similar types of lists.
Certainly every franchise can come up with such a list. But it’s telling that this list is all players from before the mid 2000s (and also most of those players played very well on the Warriors).
Arenas was a very good pick at #31 and fit just fine. He left because the rules at the time did not allow us to match his top offer in free agency.
Webber was ROY here, and the only parallel I see with JK is that he didn't want to play the 5, where Nellie wanted him. But Nellie handled it poorly; if memory serves, he admitted he never even spoke with Webber to try to work things out during that off season. CWebb was traded for a good player (Tom Gugliatta) and three first-round picks, so while Gugliatta wasn't as good as Webber, given the picks, maybe he doesn't fit Chadara's criteria anyway.
This does show that this era can take scraps and turn them into productive players in the Kerr system to the point that fans will cry out for more playing time for them.
I’m not sure what point the list makes. The players left for a variety of reasons and as EA noted, many of them did quite well with the Dubs. Most importantly, they’re all so far back into the history that none of them have anything to do with the current decision-makers. 🤷🏼♂️
I think the big takeaway of this article is that everything the Lacob critics have said about the past 5 years was indeed correct. He really is influencing draft and personnel decisions and it really has hurt the team immeasurably.
They mentioned him favoring Kuminga when the 7th pick came around and Myers/Dunleavy going with that. Can criticize the GM for that for sure but when your owner is adamant about something you are forced to basically put your job on the line to go against them. The Warriors have had one person in the building who was that way over this dynasty run and it was Jerry West (who famously threatened to quit if they traded did that Klay/Green/Barnes for Love trade that Lacob was pushing for), for all we know the dynasty stops before it even starts if Lacob gets to freely meddle with no West around. Seemed like Lacob was eager to be rid of West as well, which is why West said that "you have to be wanted" when explaining why he went to the Clippers.
Unless a billionaire who answers to no one gets humbled for the first time in recorded history, the Warriors are in for some rocky years after Curry hangs them up. And really, those years have already arrived sooner than they needed to thanks to Lacob.
> Kuminga was prepared for the conversation. He knew management wanted to [...] alert him that someone around him was taking too much food from the family room.
Ah, the post game spreads of these professional athletes...
There was an article a week ago or so that mentioned Steph preparing a to-go tray and eating on the bus to the airport at the end of a road trip, after fullfilling interview and autograph request duties in the locker room.
I know it isn't likely but IF the Warriors can re-sign Porzingis to a reasonable deal (say Kuninga money, 2 years @$25m/year) and IF he can stay healthy for a couple of years, the Warriors will have won big time as a healthy Porzingis is a far better player than JK can ever hope to be.
Most interesting part to me was that Kenny Atkinson pushed for drafting JK (and that Kerr wasn’t part of the process due to Team USA duties). I don’t think that had been previously reported.
All the rest is I think things we already knew, but nicely summarized. End of an era for better or worse, hope for the best for JK.
I think Bob said Dray texted him to pick JK and Moody but Bob followed up with something along the lines of "glad we think alike, but Dray wasn't part of the decision".
Sounds like the rest of the coaching staff was high on Wagner. But Kenny and Bob got it into Lacob's head that they need to forego skills in favor of athleticism. Then Lacob doubled down on JK through the years because he didn't want to appear wrong. Just egos getting the best of everyone.
"(Kerr and Dunleavy) blamed Kuminga's agent Aaron Turner and those around Kuminga, team sources said, for prioritizing and working "on the wrong things" away from the facility, routing his career down an incorrect path."
Some were saying we don't see all of his workouts, so we can't judge. I can't say it looked like JK worked on team offense or defense much at all over the past few years. If anything, his defense got even worse. Makes sense when all he was working on was isolation moves and mid range pull ups.
Anyone else find Slaters style slightly off putting now that hes with ESPN. Hes kinda like a talking head rather than a beat writer. For the record i thought the Kuminga piece was dumb.
Sooo… should we start booing at Lacob again?
Los Tigres del Norte are yuge in Latin America and even parts of Europe. In their heyday they were selling out stadiums. Closest comparison to an English speaking band would probably be someone like Journey but with slightly more longevity (although they are now playing the Casino circuit). Unlike Curry they are well past their prime and honestly you go to their concerts for the nostalgia factor because the voice is gone. They are also proud San Josean transplants although theyve been living in the Bay almost as long as ive been alive.
So is Gui Santos turning into the player we hoped Kuminga would be?
He kinda reminds me of a slightly bouncier JTA with what looks to be a better shot
Gui reminds me most of Luis Scola, incredible motor, not great lateral quickness on defense and not the greatest FT shooter. Scola was bigger and had a mid range, but Gui seems better from long range. Both are equally crafty around the basket. If he can have Scola's career that'd be a coup for the Dubs.
Nah they’re pretty different players. The JK dream involved a much more vertical play style
Shawn Marion vs. Shane Battier
That's an interesting comp!
I’m LOLing imagining the member of JK’s team that was eating all the food turns out to be Aaron Turner.
Honestly, I hope it was because that would be hilarious pettiness 😂
Going to the game tonight.
Have fun!
Really hoping Wemby plays...tried to see him once before but he got hurt the week before
He's not on Spurs injury report.
I understand the sentiment, but that makes one of us.
EXCELLENT interview with our adorable Brazilianaire on 95.7 https://youtu.be/m9GCjac6GiY?si=rxc7keA1VLhce_Xl
The way, you play
We’re grateful to have you in the bay
The way, you play
You're Un-Gui-lievable (oh!)
You burden me with your questions.
Shams Charania
The San Antonio Spurs and forward Jeremy Sochan have agreed on his release to allow the 2023 All-Rookie team member to become a free agent, sources tell ESPN. Sochan is expected to decide among multiple interested teams.
Don’t know much about it him but his reputation is apparently a stout defender
Kinda reminds me of JTA, a bit. Was kinda the Spurs point guard as much as anyone was for a while there.
He was kinda a PG? Interesting. Was he any good as a playmaker? I see he has 3.7 APG career but he's listed as a PF. (He's 6'8", listed at 230 lbs. per BBRef.) I haven't seen enough of him for an eye test.
A few numbers: His minutes have been cut in half this season, so he only plays 12.8 mpg. He gets 8 TRB/36 mins career. But he can't shoot from distance (career 3-point shooting 28.7% and 25.7% this season). FT% career 72.3%, down to 68.8% this season — not so good.
He wasn't really a pg....but was more of one than anyone else was for them. Not really ideal for developing your rookie unicorn big (wemby). But like JTA, pretty good at a lot of things...but not great at any of them.
Rather have him than Lonzo Ball.
you misspelled Kuminga
Glad he's gone and it should have happened sooner.
Was thinking he might be a decent backup.
Anyone know if there's a site that breaks down assists by "type"? It would be interesting to see assists (secondary assists, etc.) via drive and kick versus passing out of a double versus a dribble hand-off, etc.
Synergy for sure but we got priced out :(
I don’t know if this has been posted already. Really informative interview of Gui on an international BB podcast, Full Court Passport (in English) -
https://youtu.be/E672JCGNTew?si=TzuPKtfdc8Dua-cG
All this Kuminga talk makes me wonder: has anyone heard from our friend Asher lately?
Asher DMed me that he was voluntarily choosing to stop posting in early January.
Awww, dammit. I know he and I had our differences (I’m sure I annoyed him about as much and as often as he did me) but I really enjoyed 98% of his posts and his unique humor and style. Really hope he comes back some day…
Yep, I told him I hoped he'd come back soon.
nice one. i hope he does too.
Always a good idea to take breaks when you go too far down the rabbit hole.
As a rabbit, I feel attacked.
It's just Elmer Fudd. You've got this.
Duck Season!
As prey animals, they often are attacked.
As ahole, I can relate.
Traded to Atlanta?
I really don't see a timeline where Kuminga and his agent doesn't get humbled by the NBA in the next few years
Unless his approach to the game changes, I can see JK putting up a lot of points for perennially losing teams. We saw it against the T-Wolves.
> They blamed Kuminga's agent Aaron Turner and those around Kuminga, team sources said, for prioritizing and working "on the wrong things" away from the facility, routing his career down an incorrect path.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/47880753/inside-ugly-5-year-split-jonathan-kuminga-warriors
I mean we (well, me at least) all thought that when watching those offseason workout videos but assumed there was much more going on we didn't see and gave them the benefit of the doubt. Turns out it was as simple as that.
I think it is unstated in this article but likely true that the owner of the team that drafted you constantly pumping you up as a future great (and undercutting people in the organization who were trying to convey different expectations) would contribute significantly to an inflated sense of basketball worth. I can't put it all on Turner, hell even Dunleavy is quoted in this article as calling Kuminga a "cornerstone" at one point which isn't a great look for him if that was a genuine opinion and not a relaying of Lacob's opinion.
Also glad that this brings back up that the Pacers supposedly offered a lottery pick for Kuminga in 2023 back when I was hoping he'd be traded after his imo selfish playoff behavior and soft trade request, I was unable to find the source that reported that at the time (was probably Slater given this report).
Kings had an offer like that just this season. 1st not a lottery but it's the kings so could have been.
The kings offer included us sending out Moody
“Kuminga is a cornerstone of this franchise…and by ‘this franchise’, I mean Joe Lacob’s ego’.”
There's just more and more evidence coming out each year pointing towards Lacob for butchering the post KD years
Him not playing for Congo in FIBA was a red flag for me, despite him being there and not seeming to be hurt.
People may not remember but imo the first red flag for Kuminga was in his rookie season when he rebelled against getting sent down to the G-League for assignment by playing an incredibly low effort and detached game for Santa Cruz. I remember watching those G-League games for him and Moody back then and feeling bad for his teammates about how selfish (imo) Kuminga's on court behavior was. Warriors called him back up after that because it was clear he was going to get nothing out of that experience.
EDIT: It was the one regular season game he played, he played a few Showcase Cup games earlier in the season but I think he felt like he was above the G-League by the time he got sent down again, hence the outburst and only playing one game down there.
We've never heard reports of him running in the offseason leagues. Just videos of him scoring on defenders a foot shorter than him in a static training environment.
Contrast that with Moody, JK's contemporary. Summer before this past, Moses was running in the offseason 5-on-5s with Looney and playing 3-on-3 with guys like KD. I remember he was defending KD in the latter runs (and vice versa), and it's hard to find a tougher challenge for a wing. KD got his but Moses didn't back off a bit. And this past summer, we saw videos (the link was posted at DNHQ) of MM working with a specialist on fundamentals like footwork, handling, and getting past a defender. Respect.
Scenes in the Warriors locker room after Memphis game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QX1IiRwauQ
thats great. Who are those folks presenting the Stetsons?
The men belong to a musical group called Los Tigres del Norte, a homegrown band from San Jose that is well known in the international scene. They were recently honored and given the keys to the city of San Francisco.
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DUm9LgQjT-U/
thank you - might try and catch a show of theirs sometime!
Shams Charania Tweets
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NBA suspensions for the Pistons-Hornets fight, sources tell ESPN:
Isaiah Stewart: 7 games
Miles Bridges: 4 games
Moussa Diabate: 4 games
Jalen Duren: 2 games
Pretty light sentence for Duren as he basically started the whole thing when he shoved Diabate’s face.
There was plenty of blame to go around. Diabate went absolutely out of his mind, way beyond a shove. He had to be dragged away by his guys. As jaxfor3 says, Beef Stew got off easy considering he left the bench to stir the stew — renewing the beef just when the initial fight was getting under control.
And Miles Bridges deserves to be suspended for being Miles Bridges. (OK, I'm being facetious about that — sort of.)
There was plenty of blame to go around, for sure. I’m just saying that Duren’s suspension should be more than two games.
That is a pretty short suspension for Stewart who left the bench to get into a fight. Especially with his prior altercations.
And then expressed the opposite of remorse… Dray would have been expelled from the league permanently, and Stewart list of priors isn’t thaaat much shorter than Dray’s
Full on brawl attempt rushing off the bench by Beef Stew: 7 game suspension
Blind backhand slap by Draymond while emphasizing foul: indefinite suspension
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/47880753/inside-ugly-5-year-split-jonathan-kuminga-warriors
Kuminga is clearly not the most cerebral player but have to think Turner and Lacob unnecessarily fed his ego and turned him against one of the best coaches of all time. Shame.
Feels like Lacob needs to learn at least one of a couple lessons. Don’t override your basketball people if they are good at their jobs. If a player says they want to be an all time great but haven’t already developed the basketball skills of one, and won significant games along the way, they probably have a minuscule chance at accomplishing that later in life: lack of basketball IQ & fundamentals isn’t potential beyond middle school.
Billionaires don’t seem to learn lessons, unless it affects their net worth, which, say what you will about Lacob’s decision making as an owner (and I have a lot to say), the team is worth now more than ever. He’s going to keep getting high on his own supply until that changes, and maybe even beyond that.
There are no guarantees but maybe with better decisions by Lacob (like staying out of the way of the FO he hired), we'd be in a better position for a 5th championship, which would be money in the bank for him.
It’s entirely possible that Steph would have his fifth ring already. The Alex Caruso trade alone, where it seems Kuminga was a sticking point in the negotiations, would’ve made us that much better and OKC that much worse. This is to say nothing of the drafting. Could’ve been enough, but that’s a counterfactual, I know.
This article sums it all up. I think it will leave everyone feeling confirmed in their (different) theories about the Kuminga saga.
Interesting details about
* Other coaches wanting Wagner while Lacob and Atkinson wanting Kuminga.
* Re-confirms that Lacob didn’t exactly veto the Caruso-Kuminga trade but Lacob’s attachment to Kuminga cast a dark shadow over all team moves.
* And more details about how JK refused to play in games because he didn’t want to look bad.
If you watch my past videos, Kerr *did* run a lot of plays for Kuminga on offense. JK just wasn’t very good at them. Kuminga and Wiseman statistically and objectively hurt the team when they played, so there was always this awful conflict of “do we invest in the high picks” or “do we try to win while Steph is a star”.
Will JK be a star? He’s so young and talented that it’s still possible, and there are no more excuses left for him. Still… I just can’t shake the feeling that if JK had approached his time like Gui Santos did, how it could have all been different.
And in the end, JK earned tens of millions of dollars playing basketball, which is a lot more success than most of us will ever have. If he’d landed in a different place, like say Jalen Green did, he would have made even more money. So JK’s approach was very successful to maximize JK’s short term income.
But that’s not the kind of thing I want to root for as a *Warriors* fan. Go in peace, JK. Time for me to start worrying about Kristaps Porzingis’s health.
Jonathan Kuminga now joins a group of former decent GSW draft picks who have not worked in well with the team for a variety of reasons... and many went on to have good careers. All with over 500 total NBA game appearances.
Did not include names who were moved on in trades for comparable players.
Keith/Jamal Wilkes
Gus Williams
Chris Webber
Latrell Sprewell
Lesser names:
Lester Conner
Mickael Pietrus
Gilbert Arenas
Marco Belinelli
There may be more that I do not recall.
My guess is that other franchises could come up with similar types of lists.
Certainly every franchise can come up with such a list. But it’s telling that this list is all players from before the mid 2000s (and also most of those players played very well on the Warriors).
And some we could NOT resign so IMO an even shorter list.
Arenas was a very good pick at #31 and fit just fine. He left because the rules at the time did not allow us to match his top offer in free agency.
Webber was ROY here, and the only parallel I see with JK is that he didn't want to play the 5, where Nellie wanted him. But Nellie handled it poorly; if memory serves, he admitted he never even spoke with Webber to try to work things out during that off season. CWebb was traded for a good player (Tom Gugliatta) and three first-round picks, so while Gugliatta wasn't as good as Webber, given the picks, maybe he doesn't fit Chadara's criteria anyway.
Yeah, this seems more like a validation than indictment. No one from the Myers/Dunleavy/Kerr era.
This does show that this era can take scraps and turn them into productive players in the Kerr system to the point that fans will cry out for more playing time for them.
I posted maybe not as a valadation, but at least to show the JK situation has not been so unique.
I’m not sure what point the list makes. The players left for a variety of reasons and as EA noted, many of them did quite well with the Dubs. Most importantly, they’re all so far back into the history that none of them have anything to do with the current decision-makers. 🤷🏼♂️
I think the big takeaway of this article is that everything the Lacob critics have said about the past 5 years was indeed correct. He really is influencing draft and personnel decisions and it really has hurt the team immeasurably.
They mentioned him favoring Kuminga when the 7th pick came around and Myers/Dunleavy going with that. Can criticize the GM for that for sure but when your owner is adamant about something you are forced to basically put your job on the line to go against them. The Warriors have had one person in the building who was that way over this dynasty run and it was Jerry West (who famously threatened to quit if they traded did that Klay/Green/Barnes for Love trade that Lacob was pushing for), for all we know the dynasty stops before it even starts if Lacob gets to freely meddle with no West around. Seemed like Lacob was eager to be rid of West as well, which is why West said that "you have to be wanted" when explaining why he went to the Clippers.
Unless a billionaire who answers to no one gets humbled for the first time in recorded history, the Warriors are in for some rocky years after Curry hangs them up. And really, those years have already arrived sooner than they needed to thanks to Lacob.
Warriors letting go of West was a big mistake.
Sounds more like he was pushed out, but, yes, big mistake.
100% agree with this AND he brought the team 4 championships we likely otherwise wouldn't have had. (sigh) life is so complicated ...
> Kuminga was prepared for the conversation. He knew management wanted to [...] alert him that someone around him was taking too much food from the family room.
🤦♂️
Ah, the post game spreads of these professional athletes...
There was an article a week ago or so that mentioned Steph preparing a to-go tray and eating on the bus to the airport at the end of a road trip, after fullfilling interview and autograph request duties in the locker room.
Warriorsworld "reported" that a player was doing this a month or two ago, guess they do indeed have sources within the organization.
https://www.reddit.com/r/warriors/comments/1r25014/buddy_hield_said_blame_jimmy_not_kuminga/
Buddy: They lying it was Jimmy
May Buddy keep trolling Jimmy forever, no matter what team he ends up on
This is a really good article on the Kuminga saga with the quote below summarizing the whole debacle.
"Everybody was right. Everybody was wrong. Everyone's to blame," another team source said. "Nobody won."
Yeah, nobody won.
I know it isn't likely but IF the Warriors can re-sign Porzingis to a reasonable deal (say Kuninga money, 2 years @$25m/year) and IF he can stay healthy for a couple of years, the Warriors will have won big time as a healthy Porzingis is a far better player than JK can ever hope to be.
This is a very Pro Kuminga piece. Turner is even quoted directly by Slater. lolz
Most interesting part to me was that Kenny Atkinson pushed for drafting JK (and that Kerr wasn’t part of the process due to Team USA duties). I don’t think that had been previously reported.
All the rest is I think things we already knew, but nicely summarized. End of an era for better or worse, hope for the best for JK.
And then Atkinson realized his mistake and jumped ship to the Cavs. Gee, thanks Kenny.
> I don’t think that had been previously reported.
I think we heard about that shortly after the draft. But I haven't heard it mentioned again until now.
I at the very least remember Bob saying (whether true or not) that it was Draymond who told him to draft JK and Moody
I think Bob said Dray texted him to pick JK and Moody but Bob followed up with something along the lines of "glad we think alike, but Dray wasn't part of the decision".
Sounds like the rest of the coaching staff was high on Wagner. But Kenny and Bob got it into Lacob's head that they need to forego skills in favor of athleticism. Then Lacob doubled down on JK through the years because he didn't want to appear wrong. Just egos getting the best of everyone.
I blame Lacob's meddling and not the HOF basketball coach.
Agreed. That's what I said. lol
Sorry was in the Lacob blame zone after reading the article. 😆
"(Kerr and Dunleavy) blamed Kuminga's agent Aaron Turner and those around Kuminga, team sources said, for prioritizing and working "on the wrong things" away from the facility, routing his career down an incorrect path."
Some were saying we don't see all of his workouts, so we can't judge. I can't say it looked like JK worked on team offense or defense much at all over the past few years. If anything, his defense got even worse. Makes sense when all he was working on was isolation moves and mid range pull ups.