3 reasons the Warriors could come to regret Jonathan Kuminga lottery pick

Reason Warriors regret Jonathan Kuminga pick: Wasted year of Steph

It's a bit difficult to mount the 'Kuminga wasted Steph's prime!' argument in the face of the 2022 championship run, but hear me out: the Warriors should be good enough to contend every season. The Warriors finished the 2023 season as the No. 6 seed and were eliminated in unceremonious fashion by the No. 7 seed Lakers. That is flatly unacceptable for a team rostering prime Stephen Curry.

Any time your franchise is blessed with a genuine all-time talent — especially one that has hung four banners in the rafters — it is paramount to maximize that player's prime years. Golden State owes it to Steph to go all-out every season until he's done. Last season was a crystal clear example of the downside to the two-timelines approach, which sacrificed short-term depth to cultivate the next crop of Warriors stars for a post-Steph future.

Well, news flash. Kuminga and his fellow 2021 lottery pick Moses Moody are quality players, but neither is a foundational pillar upon which the next decade of Golden State basketball can be built. The Warriors failed to draft stars and also failed to draft ready-now contributors. Kuminga quickly emerged as a rotation piece, but it has often felt like Steve Kerr is trying to jam a round peg into a square hole.

Kuminga receives reps as a small-ball five, but his lack of rim protection and awareness tanks the Warriors' defense. As a four, his lack of offensive feel prevents Kuminga from consistently impacting winning. He's an explosive driver and respectable (if not great) shooter, but Kuminga is prone to tunnel vision on drives and he doesn't always compute with the Warriors' movement-heavy, willfully complex offense.

It's a questionable basketball fit and Kuminga has made his desire for a bigger role public. Meanwhile, the Warriors phased him out of the postseason rotation and struggled to find minutes for a lottery pick when the stakes were highest. Kuminga would have been better off on a rebuilding team with a long runway for Kuminga to experiment and learn. The Warriors would have been better off selecting a more polished contributor or trading the pick for a veteran winner.