Draymond Green breaks his silence on being benched in favor of Jonathan Kuminga

After Golden State Warriors youngster Jonathan Kuminga spent much of the beginning of the 2024-25 regular season as a bench player, he has gotten the start at the power forward position in each of the team’s last three games.

Kuminga’s promotion to the Warriors’ starting five means Draymond Green will be coming off the pine, but recent words from the defensive ace suggest that he’s all for the change to the team’s lineup.

“A lot of people in this organization, including myself, think he’s next,” Green said. “So, if he’s next, at some point, we gotta see it. For him to do that, he needs the opportunity. If the opportunity falls on you — being me — then, that’s what it is. You gotta figure it out. He’s earned the right to get that opportunity.”

Green sat out for Golden State’s contests against the Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets earlier in the month due to a calf injury, but he suited up against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Dec. 6 and played productive basketball off the bench. He stuffed the stat sheet with 10 points, nine rebounds, six assists, two steals and one blocked shot.

As for Kuminga, he has dropped 18-plus points in two of his last three games played. His best scoring performance in that span came in Golden State’s win over the Rockets back on Dec. 5. He scored a team-high 33 points on 13-of-22 shooting from the floor and 3-of-6 from 3-point range in the Warriors’ six-point victory.

But Golden State’s victory over Houston marks the team’s only win in the month of December so far.

It’s easy to see why the Warriors have shaken up their starting lineup when factoring in how the team has performed of late. Ever since the team got off to a red-hot start to the campaign, Golden State has since lost six of its last seven contests.

At 13-9, the Warriors are four games back of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the best record in the Western Conference and just one-and-a-half games ahead of the No. 10 seed in the West, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Green, Kuminga and the Warriors will try to return to their winning ways when they take on the Timberwolves for the second time of the week on Sunday night. Minnesota is one of the hotter teams in the Western Conference at the moment, as it’s on a four-game winning streak and hasn’t picked up a loss since it fell to the Sacramento Kings on Nov. 27.