{"id":116450,"date":"2025-01-06T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T23:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=116450"},"modified":"2025-01-06T18:13:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T23:13:00","slug":"warriors-jonathan-kuminga-injury-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/06\/warriors-jonathan-kuminga-injury-absence\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Players Warriors Must Lean on in Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s Absence"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> going down with an ankle injury during Golden State\u2019s 121-113 win over the Memphis Grizzlies, the Warriors will be in need of some reinforcements. The injury\u2014which is expected to keep Kuminga sidelined for at least three weeks<\/a>\u2014is untimely and unfortunate for a handful of reasons. Firstly, the Warriors seemed to be finally hitting their stride as a unit. Winners of three of their past four\u2014at the time\u2014the first and second units seemed to finally be finding some consistency with the new addition<\/a> of Dennis Schr\u00f6der<\/a>. And secondly, along with the Warriors hitting their stride, Kuminga himself seemed to finally be breaking new grounds. The fourth-year forward has looked as confident and dynamic as he’s ever been in the past few weeks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Luckily for the Warriors, despite their many flaws, their roster depth is actually one of their key strengths. So while no individual player can fully replace Kuminga\u2019s production, the Warriors do have a handful of good options who they can turn to in his absence. Below is a list of three players whom the Warriors need to get increased production out of over the next three plus weeks. The Warriors’ ability to keep their momentum and pace in the Western Conference could hinge on the ability of these three players to handle larger roles.<\/span><\/p>\n

3 Players Warriors Must Lean on in Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s Absence<\/h2>\n

Kyle Anderson<\/b><\/h3>\n

Perhaps the player who could be in line for the greatest uptick in playing time is first-year Warrior, Kyle Anderson<\/a>. Anderson has seemed to get the short end of the stick recently as far as playing time is concerned, largely due to coach Steve Kerr looking to shorten his regular rotation down to nine players\u2014usually. As a result, Anderson\u2019s playing time has fluctuated in recent weeks. Last game\u2014the first without Kuminga\u2014Anderson saw 16 minutes, the game before that 22 minutes of action, and the game before that, just eight. Anderson has even collected six DNP\u2019s this season. Generally speaking however, when Anderson\u2019s number has been called, he’s delivered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With Kuminga out for upwards of three weeks, Anderson will likely have his number called with much more regularity going forward. And while Anderson is far from the score\/slasher that Kuminga is, the 6\u20199\u201d combo-forward holds sizable advantages as both a defender and distributor over Kuminga. Look for Anderson to surpass the 20-minute threshold with much more consistency while Kuminga remains out. With his signature slo-mo style of play, Anderson should be able to consistently make impact plays while leaning on his defensive instincts and veteran smarts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Buddy Hield<\/b><\/h3>\n

It’s too early to say, but Buddy Hield<\/a> may be breaking out of his shooting slump<\/a>. Following back-to-back solid games, Hield may finally be turning a corner. Yes, two games is far from a large enough sample size to draw any real takeaways from, but the Warriors are desperate for any signs of improvements from Hield right now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beginning with the game where Kuminga sustained his injury, Hield looked a lot like the player he was at the start of the season. He connected on an efficient five of nine field goal attempts, (including four three-pointers), en route to 14 points. Hield then followed that performance up with seven points against the Sacramento Kings, in the Warriors\u2019 first full game without Kuminga. Yes, seven points from Hield is far from overly impressive, but the game was essentially out of hand and over by halftime. Had the game been more tightly contested, Hield could\u2019ve been on his way to a decent showing\u2014he only logged 18 minutes during the blowout loss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Buddy Hield is one of the few Warriors players capable of going off for 20+ points on any given night. While those nights have been few and far between in recent weeks\u2014heavy emphasis on the word “few”\u2014hypothetically, Hield is still capable if he gets in a groove. With Kuminga sidelined by injury, the Warriors desperately need Hield to catch a rhythm now more than ever and provide some scoring support for Steph Curry<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moses Moody<\/b><\/h3>\n

Lastly, despite Kerr continuing to show hesitancy when it comes to leaning on Moses Moody<\/a>, there’s no time like the present. Moody has always shown himself to be a capable player, and the time is now to really let him play with some freedom. With Kuminga out of the lineup, the Warriors will be looking for a spark from some other source. Moody is an entirely different player than Kuminga\u2014with a much lower, less explosive ceiling\u2014but if he\u2019s one thing, it’s reliable.<\/span><\/p>\n

As previously mentioned, no one player on the Warriors is capable of replacing the entirety of Kuminga\u2019s production, but Moody is certainly capable of playing his part. With a solid\u2014if not overly impressive\u2014shooting slash of 45.3\/40.4\/73.8, Moody embodies the prototypical low-volume, high-impact complimentary piece.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just as Moody demonstrated during his 13-point performance on 50% shooting against the Kings on Sunday night, these next three weeks are as good a time as any to prove to Steve Kerr—and all of Dub Nation—that his production and his game are translatable to a larger role. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of Jonathan Kuminga going down with an ankle injury during Golden State\u2019s 121-113 win over the Memphis Grizzlies, the Warriors will be in need of some reinforcements. The injury\u2014which is expected to keep Kuminga sidelined for at least three weeks\u2014is untimely and unfortunate for a handful of reasons. Firstly, the Warriors seemed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5268,"featured_media":106973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,25,62],"tags":[256,252,4297,1021,4176,48,528],"class_list":["post-116450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-warriors","category-nba","tag-buddy-hield","tag-dennis-schroder","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-kyle-anderson","tag-moses-moody","tag-stephen-curry","tag-steve-kerr"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116469,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116450\/revisions\/116469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}