Warriors Are Playing With Fire In Restricted Free Agency With Jonathan Kuminga

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 06: Jonathan Kuminga #00 of the Golden State Warriors celebrates a three-point basket against the Houston Rockets in the first quarter at Chase Center on April 06, 2025 in San Francisco, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Eakin Howard/Getty Images)

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The Golden State Warriors’ standstill with restricted free agent Jonathan Kuminga is showing no signs of relenting anytime soon.

On Wednesday, ESPN’s Shams Charania and Anthony Slater reported the Warriors “made another push” to re-sign Kuminga, albeit with a two-year, $45 million contract offer that includes a second-year team option and an “unwillingness to let him maintain the built-in no-trade clause.” They added that the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings have explored sign-and-trades for Kuminga, but the Warriors “have been uninterested in the trade returns.”

“In recent days, they have begun signaling a plan to cut off sign-and-trade conversations entirely, using their restricted free agency leverage to the fullest,” Charania and Slater wrote. “Their current stance is that Kuminga will be on the Warriors’ roster to begin next season—either through their two-year offer on the table or the standing $7.9 million one-year qualifying offer, whichever is Kuminga’s preferred path.”

To some extent, the Warriors are just taking advantage of the leverage that restricted free agency grants them. The Brooklyn Nets are the only team with significant salary-cap space at the moment, and they have yet to express real interest in signing Kuminga to a bloated offer sheet. Even if they did, the Warriors have the right to match any offer sheet that Kuminga signs with another team.

The Warriors do need to be careful, though. If they push their luck with Kuminga, he might decide to gamble on himself and take the qualifying offer, which would make him an unrestricted free agent in 2026. It would tie their hands from a trade standpoint, too.

“If he takes the qualifying offer, the Warriors are f–ked from a team-building standpoint, because they need to get him on a deal where they can trade him,” an NBA executive told Fred Katz of The Athletic. “That’s the key for them.”

Warriors Playing The Leverage Game With Kuminga

On the surface, the Warriors hold most of the leverage in their negotiations with Kuminga. They don’t have to participate in sign-and-trade talks with other teams. They could force Kuminga and his agent to find a team that can sign him to an offer sheet of their liking with cap space or a salary-cap exception.

Since the Nets are currently the only team with more than the $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception at their disposal, that could be tough. Then again, the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t enter free agency with enough cap space to sign Myles Turner away from the Indiana Pacers. It took an unprecedented waive-and-stretch of Damian Lillard for them to create that type of spending power.

The longer the Warriors wait, the more they invite another Kuminga suitor to make that type of move. But if that isn’t a realistic option, Kuminga may only have two choices: sign whatever the Warriors offer him, or take his qualifying offer.

The Warriors’ latest reported offer comes with a major caveat. If he signs a two-year deal with a second-year team option and waives his implied no-trade clause, the Warriors could trade him to the team of their choosing starting on Jan. 15. That team would then have the right to decide whether to pick up its team option on Kuminga for the 2026-27 season.

However, if Kuminga’s new team declined his option, that would limit how much it could spend to re-sign him in free agency. When a player gets traded on a one-year contract (excluding option years) with either full Bird or Early Bird rights, his new team only gets non-Bird rights on him. That allows them to offer him no more than 120% of his previous salary as the starting salary of a new contract.

The Warriors’ current offer would give Kuminga a starting salary north of $20 million, so his new team not having full Bird rights not might be a total deal-breaker. But if he breaks out in the second half of the season and merits a starting salary north of $30 million, his new team could not offer him that much in free agency without creating that amount of cap space.

“This continued stalemate is largely about control, and the option dispute is at the crux of it,” Charania and Slater wrote. “Kuminga believes accepting the Warriors’ two-year offer with a team option, along with forfeiting trade veto rights, cedes too much control to a franchise he believes has stunted and strung his career along for four seasons.”

That’s why the nuclear option of the qualifying offer may be on the table for Kuminga, although that could wind up being a lose-lose situation for both him and the Warriors.

A De Facto No-Trade Clause Could Burn The Warriors

If Kuminga does accept his qualifying offer, he’d become an unrestricted free agent in 2026. Since he’d be on a one-year deal and has full Bird rights, he’d also have the ability to veto any trade this season.

Even if Kuminga did sign off on a trade, having him only earning $7.9 million this season rather than $20-plus million would limit what the Warriors could receive in return for him. As much as they might try to bluster otherwise to maintain leverage in negotiations, this would be the worst-case scenario for them.

It wouldn’t be much better for Kuminga. He already fell out of head coach Steve Kerr’s rotation late last season following Jimmy Butler’s arrival in Golden State. If both sides were clear that he was a one-year rental, the Warriors might decide to bury him on the bench since he wouldn’t factor into their long-term future regardless.

Although Kuminga would become an unrestricted free agent next summer, there’s no guarantee that he’d be in line for a massive payday. The cap-space environment around the league might not be quite as tight as it was this offseason, but teams are less incentivized to hoard cap space since most top-tier players sign extensions long before becoming free agents.

The Warriors would still maintain full Bird rights on Kuminga next summer, which would allow them to re-sign him to anything up to a max contract even if they’re over the salary cap. However, they wouldn’t have the right to match any offer that he signed with another team. If he takes the qualifying offer, there’s a chance that they’d lose him for nothing next summer.

The Warriors were reportedly protective of Kuminga in trade talks for star players in recent years. Being left empty-handed after his departure would be a huge blow from an asset standpoint. So, while they may have more leverage than Kuminga at the moment, the threat of him picking up his qualifying offer could be mutually assured destruction.

With that in mind, a three-year deal at around the same annual price point of $22-23 million might be a reasonable compromise for both sides. If the third year was a team option, Kuminga’s contract would line up with Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler’s deals, so the Warriors could still be left with a largely blank slate in 2027. And since Kuminga would have two guaranteed years on his contract, he wouldn’t have the ability to veto any trade this season. Once he became trade-eligible on Jan. 15, the Warriors could send him wherever they pleased.

But if the Warriors stubbornly stick to their two-year offer with a second-year team option and Kuminga keeps refusing to sign it, both sides might be courting disaster.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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