Preview: WARNING! HAWKS' KUMINGA SEEKS REVENGE AGAINST WOUNDED WARRIORS
RING THE ALARM! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
Jonathan Kuminga is out here hitting 75-foot buzzer-beaters, in 6 games averaging 14.8 PPG, 5.2 TRB, 2.7 AST, on .566 FG%, .583 3P%, .632 FT%, balling for a team that went on an eleven-game winning streak.
The Warriors drafted this man seventh overall, and the new version of him is currently thriving in Georgia because Golden State spent four and a half years learning he wasn’t a fit.
You want beef? The beef is that we all watched it happen in real time. The fourth quarters where he’d be stapled to the bench in close games. The rotation battles he kept losing to players whose best skill was hustle.
The coaching staff never quite found the language to unlock Kuminga. And now Atlanta is 6-0 in his six games, reportedly building a multi-year extension around him, and the man just broke the franchise record for longest make in Hawks history with a prayer from 75 feet that went in like the basketball gods were settling a personal score.
Go ahead and feel that, Dub Nation. I’ll wait. HE LEARNED FROM STEPH AFTER ALL!
Tonight the Warriors walk into State Farm Arena without Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Al Horford, Seth Curry, and Moses Moody, fresh off getting humiliated 115-101 by the Cade Cunningham-less Detroit Pistons on Friday. Kristaps Porzingis left in the second quarter with lower back soreness and is doubtful to play tonight, which means the player Golden State acquired for Kuminga and Buddy Hield might not even be available to face the players Golden State traded away. NO!
And then there is Kuminga, waiting.
He will be aggressive tonight. He has been aggressive every night since the trade, because for the first time in his professional career, UNLEASHED. Tonight is not just a basketball game. It is a referendum on what this franchise chose to prioritize, and Kuminga is going to make that case with everything he has.
Watch him, Dub Nation. You helped build this.