The Golden State Warriors and restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga have yet to agree to a new contract, but it appears the former lottery pick is expected to be on the team when the 2025-26 season starts.
“The word I got when I checked in with a Warriors source on Sunday: Kuminga won’t be traded this summer,” the San Francisco Standard’s Tim Kawakami wrote. “He’ll be back on the Warriors’ roster to start the season. And it’ll either come when he signs the Warriors’ offer or accepts the $7.9 million one-year qualifying offer.”
Kuminga has turned down Golden State’s offers to this point, but since he’s a restricted free agent (meaning the Warriors can match any offer sheet he signs with another team), he doesn’t have a ton of leverage.
Plus, for Kuminga to get a major pay day with another team, the Warriors would likely need to agree to a sign-and-trade deal, as there currently are only two teams in the NBA with cap space (Utah and Brooklyn).
The No. 7 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Kuminga has had an up-and-down tenure with Golden State.
He’s been benched at times by head coach Steve Kerr, including in some of Golden State’s first-round series against the Houston Rockets in the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
However, the young forward is a solid scorer, and he averaged 15.3 points per game while shooting 45.4 percent from the field and 30.5 percent from 3-point range in the 2024-25 season.
While it’s possible that Kuminga isn’t a part of Golden State’s long-term plan, Kawakami revealed that the franchise is “unenthusiastic” about the idea of sending Kuminga out in a sign-and-trade deal this offseason.
“But several sources have indicated that the Warriors have been unenthusiastic about the general idea of a Kuminga sign-and-trade from the outset,” Kawakami wrote. “The broad context is that Joe Lacob remains a fan of Kuminga’s and is determined to either keep the 22-year-old on the roster or get real value in return. And he’s willing to wait it out.”
Kuminga could accept the qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent next offseason, but the landscape in free agency could be dicey. According to Spotrac, only the Brooklyn Nets are projected to have cap space next offseason.
If Brooklyn isn’t willing to make a move for Kuminga this offseason, it’s hard to imagine the team would be willing to do so in the 2026 offseason, unless he has a huge year in the 2025-26 campaign.
It’ll be interesting to see how Golden State handles Kuminga’s free agency this offseason as it attempts to build a contending team around Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler.
