The Warriors Should Consider Starting Jonathan Kuminga At Center

The Golden State Warriors came into this season with championship expectations, and why shouldn’t they? Klay Thompson was coming back after being sidelined for two and a half years, Stephen Curry was coming off an MVP-caliber season, and the club has strengthened their depth substantially, adding quality veterans to the bench.

As the season progressed, another argument for success presented itself in the form of 19-year-old rookie Jonathan Kuminga, who offers the Warriors an element of athleticism they haven’t had in years.

Now, with the playoffs looming, there’s merit in exploring the option of starting the rookie at center for the postseason.

How it could work

Kuminga’s athleticism and energy could prove to be an impactful way to start off games, especially against younger teams that come in with fresh legs and unbridled exuberance. Kuminga, who stands 6’8 and with a 6’11 wingspan, doesn’t have traditional center size, but his ability to cover a lot of ground in a short span of time makes up for any positional shortcomings.

Offensively, Kuminga is an underrated scorer, averaging 9.1 points in just over 16 minutes of playing time. He enjoys going to the basket, with 60.1% of his shot attempts coming from within ten feet of the basket. 132 of his 190 made field goals on the season have been either dunks or layups, but he balances his interior focus decently with his 33.3% success rate from three-point territory.

In the playoffs, Kuminga won’t necessarily be an offensively featured player, especially as Thompson gets even more used to being back on the court. However, simply having a presence out there who is that offensively inclined can work as an asset when the club experiences scoring droughts.

Using Kuminga in the dunker’s spot will keep a defender in the paint, providing one less option to jump out to guard Curry, when he’s back healthy. Kuminga’s explosiveness is a few tiers above that of Kevon Looney – who we’ll get back to later – and he would become an early and intriguing passing target for both Curry and Green.

Defensively, Kuminga works better as a help defender or switcher than as a one-on-one post defender against opposing bigs. However, that might not be much of an issue, especially if he shares the court with Green, making the two somewhat interchangeable.

The rookie can fly in from the weak sides to challenge shots, and quicker get into transition after stops.

The Kevon Looney discussion

Looney, a permanent fixture in Golden State since 2015, is playing the best basketball of his career, while starting all 70 of his games.

On the surface, it seems unjust to remove him from the starting lineup, which is a fair concern given that he’s pulling in 7.6 rebounds per game in just 21.7 minutes, and hitting 56.6% of his shots.

Placing Looney in the second unit would be a tough swallow for those reasons, and will be a tough balancing act to pull off, as a benching could be seen as a demotion.

However, there’s merit in putting Looney, his steady production, and his experience level on the bench alongside Otto Porter, Andre Iguodala and Nemanja Bjelica.

Having a bench with such experience, and with such a level of consistent production, should be a major boon for the Warriors in their quest for a fourth title. Looney would be going up against – primarily – backup centers, when he’s used to playing against first-tier players, which should provide him with an easier task than the one he’s used to.

So while this could be seen as a knock on Looney, it’s anything but. The Warriors desperately need his interior production, his experience, and his defensive capabilities to compete for a championship, and any benching should not come with an additional sacrifice of minutes. Instead, those minutes should become even more influential, and help Golden State win minutes when key members of the starting unit are out.

Of course, at the end of the day, head coach Steve Kerr could decide he needs Looney in the starting unit to mess with a winning formula too much. The Warriors, after all, still have the third-best odds of winning the Finals, which means there are limits to how much you tinker with your lineups.

That said, there could come a time in the postseason where the team needs to inject some energy from the get-go, particularly after teams begin to get a good feel of how they operate. In that even, tipping off with Kuminga at center could throw everyone for a loop, which could be a good thing.