When it comes to the type of role rookie Jonathan Kuminga will play for the Warriors this postseason, general manager Bob Myers has a simple response.
“To be determined,” he said.
Myers discussed the 19-year-old’s potential playoff duties at length with Bonta Hill, Dorell Wright and Festus Ezeli during NBC Sports Bay Area’s Warriors Pregame Live on Wednesday, noting that Kuminga’s youth plays a huge part in how much time he’ll see on the court.
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“You both were rookies,” Myers told Wright and Ezeli. “It’s hard for rookies to understand what the playoffs even are, I don’t know if you remember.”
Kuminga was selected No. 7 overall by the Warriors in the 2021 NBA Draft at just 18 years old. He has captured the attention of the entire league during his rookie season and continues to improve, but Myers isn’t sure if he’s ready for the bright lights of a playoff game.
“He’s a young 19,” Myers said. “... People forget with him, he’s a year younger than many rookies in his class, like over a year, of the players picked around him. He should probably be a freshman in college right now, but he came up early and here he is.
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“... I think he’s still figuring out -- as is the staff and the team -- how to use him.”
Through 65 games this season, Kuminga is averaging 16.8 minutes, 9.1 points, 3.3 rebounds and 0.9 assists, and has already evolved into a regular rotation player. He has also become one of Golden State’s most reliable free throw shooters, but, as with many young players, has struggled to find consistency on the court.
The key to utilizing the young small forward in the playoffs could be finding series matchups -- should the Warriors go far in the postseason -- which play to his favor, Myers said.
“You have games where, like a lot of rookies, he looks like he’s found it and he’s figured it out, then the next game he looks like a rookie. That’s what rookies look like, though, so in a playoff game, it might be that one game he wins you a game,” Myers said. “And then Steve [Kerr] finds out in 10 minutes of another game, this doesn’t work. And it may be series dependent.”
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Kuminga has stepped up and impressed as the Warriors battled key injuries to star players such as Steph Curry and Draymond Green this season, and Myers is confident that in time, he’ll be one of the team’s go-to guys -- even in playoffs.
“... Eventually he’ll be a guy that you play any time, all the time, but he has to get there, right? And he will. He works hard, he’ll get there,” Myers said.