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Warriors’ Steve Kerr revealed Jonathan Kuminga’s role moving forward

Cody Taylor
·3 min read
Warriors’ Steve Kerr revealed Jonathan Kuminga’s role moving forward

Jonathan Kuminga turned in a strong effort in practice recently and Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr opted to reward the rookie with a spot in the rotation on Friday night.

Kuminga responded by recording a career-high eight points, one rebound and one assist during a 119-93 win over the Chicago Bulls, their seventh straight victory. He shot 4-of-6 from the field, and had a couple of strong dunks over the Bulls.

The Warriors have noticed that Kuminga has made great progress over the past couple of weeks after missing most of training camp with a knee injury. The team wanted to get him more playing time, and that resulted in a season-high 16 minutes of work.

Kerr detailed his role moving forward after the contest.

As long as he goes out there and runs the floor, plays defense, takes care of the ball and passes like he did tonight, we’re going to continue to give him opportunities. It’ll be a day-to-day, week-to-week thing depending on how he’s doing and depending on the health of our team.

We need him to develop and we want to do it in a healthy way. If that means he goes to Santa Cruz and plays 35 minutes to get extra time, I think that’s still a possibility; that’s always a possibility. In the meantime, he has just got to keep doing what he’s doing.

Kuminga has impressed those around him over the first several weeks of the season. Despite missing time with an injury, the team can still see the potential in his game and believes he will eventually develop into a full-time rotational player.

Warriors forward Draymond Green was recently surprised by Kuminga’s ability to see the floor and get others involved. Kerr noticed that same aspect of his game.

I think one of Jonathan’s strengths as a rookie is his passing ability. You saw it in the summer league and we saw it in training camp before he got hurt. He has got a good knack for driving and kicking, finding shooters. We decided to go to that action just to see if we could get him into some space and he got into space and made some really nice plays.

Kuminga has played some with Santa Cruz in the NBA G League and could see more minutes there down the line. For now, Kuminga looks to have carved out a little role with Golden State in the interim.

The Warriors return to play Sunday on the road vs. the Charlotte Hornets.

This post originally appeared on Rookie Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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