{"id":125892,"date":"2025-02-27T07:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T12:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=125892"},"modified":"2025-02-27T00:15:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T05:15:47","slug":"warriors-injury-update-jonathan-kuminga-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/27\/warriors-injury-update-jonathan-kuminga-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Warriors Injury Update Should Worry the Rest of the League"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Golden State Warriors<\/a> are feeling good and stacking up wins. The Jimmy Butler<\/a> trade seems to have invigorated the team. Their record with Butler is 6-1 and they have now climbed back into the middle of the Western Conference playoff race. Draymond Green<\/a> is even going as far as promising another championship<\/a> in the Bay Area. Now, they may have even more reinforcements on the way.<\/span> Anthony Slater just reported<\/span><\/a> that \u00a0Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> could return during the Warriors’ upcoming road trip. Does the return of Kuminga give the red-hot Warriors a real chance at fulfilling Green\u2019s bold promise?<\/span><\/p>\n

Jonathan Kuminga’s Injury Update Should Worry the Rest of the League<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Jimmy Butler Trade is Paying Off<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Nobody would have been able to predict just how well Butler is fitting in with the Dubs. The ball is moving more, the bench is more engaged, and above all, Stephen Curry<\/a> and Green seem to be re-energized by having another smart, talented, veteran in the lineup. The Warriors couldn\u2019t have dreamed up a better scenario.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s Return is Key<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Warriors theoretically should get even better in a few days. Based on this report the Warriors’ most exciting young player returning very soon. He supposedly is still waiting for the green light from the Warriors\u2019 training staff but has already been scrimmaging during practice. Before he went down with a severe ankle sprain, Kuminga looked like he was finally becoming ready to take on a bigger responsibility for the Dubs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kuminga was averaging a career-high 16.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game before he went down. The game had slowed down for him as well, making less rushed offensive plays and boneheaded mistakes on defense. Injecting his athleticism and raw scoring talent onto a rolling Warriors team should make everyone in the league very scared.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Butler-Kuminga Connection<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another reason for so much optimism around Kuminga’s return is that he now has a perfect veteran to model his game after.<\/span> Coach Steve Kerr recently spoke <\/span><\/a>on how he wants Kuminga to do his best to learn from Butler and see how he can emulate his game. Kerr loves how Butler doesn’t rush, never turns the ball over, and makes the right reads. If Kuminga returns from injury and adds that to his game, he could be very dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Butler spoke on<\/a> Kuminga\u2019s potential and the integration process saying,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s going to be easy. [Kumgina is] hella athletic. Can shoot it. Can score it in a multitude of ways. And can guard. I think he\u2019s going to come back and do what he\u2019s been doing. My job is to make it even easier on him. So come on back and help us get some dubs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If Kuminga integrates smoothly back into the lineup and can contribute to the Warriors’ new winning ways, they will become even more dangerous than they\u2019ve been since landing Butler. Kuminga can take some of the offensive pressure off of Curry and Butler. If those two can save a little energy before an NBA Finals push we know that they can make it there. They have a combined eight Finals appearances in the last ten years, and as we saw in 2022 and the Olympics this summer, if you give Curry a chance, he may just win it all. Ultimately, Jonathan Kuminga’s return could change everything.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Golden State Warriors are feeling good and stacking up wins. The Jimmy Butler trade seems to have invigorated the team. Their record with Butler is 6-1 and they have now climbed back into the middle of the Western Conference playoff race. Draymond Green is even going as far as promising another championship in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":125915,"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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,25,62],"tags":[4297],"class_list":["post-125892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-warriors","category-nba","tag-jonathan-kuminga"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125892","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\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125892"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125916,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125892\/revisions\/125916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}