Kawakami: Steve Kerr on Kuminga, Butler, the Curry partnership, and his own future

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Steve Kerr would love for Jonathan Kuminga to turn into an updated version of Shawn Marion or a close copy of Aaron Gordon and ease right in as a consummate complementary piece next to Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green.

I suspect many of Kuminga’s current Warriors teammates would love that, too. Sometimes, I’m sure that Kuminga understands and embraces this practical path for his still-young career.

But not all of the time. Or most times. Which, of course, sets a large spotlight on Kuminga’s near-term future, with a shot at restricted free agency coming up this offseason and the Warriors reassessing themselves after their charge into the playoffs and second-round loss this month.

They know that the Kuminga situation is problematic. The Warriors know paying him his market rate would shoot them over the first apron and deep into the luxury tax. They know that in a perfect world, Kuminga would’ve been a star by now and well worth every minute and free-agent dollar. But this isn’t a perfect world. And he’s not a star yet — and might never get there on this team (or any team).

“It’s a tricky one because Jonathan obviously is gifted and wants to play a bigger role and wants to play more,” Kerr said on my podcast Wednesday. “And for me, I’ve been asked to win. And right now, he’s not a guy who I can say I’m going to play 38 minutes with the roster that we have — Steph and Jimmy and Draymond — and put the puzzle together that way and expect to win. …

“All I do is I try to win. That doesn’t necessarily mean everybody’s going to be happy, whether it’s the fans, or the players, or management, whatever, it’s just I’ve gotta do what I think is best.”

Kuminga, as Kerr suggested, absolutely still has fans in the Warriors’ front office, led, of course, by Joe Lacob. He’s only 22 and the talent is abundant and obvious, as we all saw when Kerr put Kuminga back into the rotation after Curry’s Game 1 injury against Minnesota. But the issues are almost as plentiful and obvious — even after Kuminga led the Warriors in scoring in that series, he had a -15.8 net rating in the playoffs and was -49 overall in the plus-minus.

There were reasons Kerr benched Kuminga going into the playoffs. There were reasons the Warriors almost never were their best when Kuminga was on the floor.

“I’ve always felt like the type of player JK needs to be is, I’ve mentioned this in the past, Shawn Marion is a guy who jumps out,” Kerr said. “With his athleticism, running the floor, putting pressure on the rim, offensive rebounds, getting into the dunker (spot) … going up and dunking, guarding everybody at the other end. To me, that’s what he’s really built for. And we’ve really pushed him in that direction.

“And I think sometimes with young players, there’s a process. I think Aaron Gordon is a good example, he spent years in Orlando where he really wanted to be the scorer and the lead guy. And had some success, like JK has. And maybe didn’t really didn’t find his role and find himself ’til later (when he arrived in Denver).”

Kerr said there’s a lot of growth ahead for Kuminga, and it’s clear some of that will have to come off the ball.

“I think right now he is a ball-dominant player, 92nd percentile in usage rate this year in the NBA. That’s really high. On a team with Steph and Jimmy, I mean, honestly, Steph’s gonna have the ball, Jimmy’s gonna have the ball, you know? And so the fit is tricky, there’s no question.”

This wasn’t meant as a definitive sendoff for Kuminga. On the Warriors’ side, Mike Dunleavy will have the most say about Kuminga’s future, which will be decided when everybody finds out which other teams are interested, what they offer, and if a sign-and-trade deal can be hammered out. It’s still possible that Kuminga ends up back with the Warriors next season. And this is just one of the issues the Warriors are facing this offseason. But it’s the biggest one and it has the most potential ramifications.

The Warriors just don’t have many ways to add to their roster other than seeing what they can get for Kuminga. And they definitely need to add some better-fitting pieces to their roster. So it’s a good thing that, as Curry put it and Kerr concurred, their run with Butler gave the Warriors so much clarity about the next few seasons.

“You know, as soon as we traded for Jimmy Butler, we got really good,” Kerr said. “And as soon as Steph Curry got hurt, we lost. And sometimes it’s that simple.”

The goal from here, Kerr said, is to keep it going for as long as they can with their veteran stars. You can judge the Warriors for the way things fell apart against the Timberwolves once Curry got hurt, but you also can’t throw away the 23-8 regular-season finish with Butler and first-round victory over Houston, including a Game 7 triumph on the road.

And you can believe that Butler should’ve been more aggressive shooting the ball once Curry was out, but you also have to understand that he instantly added so much to the Warriors precisely because he is so adamant about setting up his teammates.

“I think Jimmy, he’s a subtle superstar,” Kerr said. “He doesn’t jump off the page when you watch him from afar from a skill standpoint, from an athletic standpoint. But as soon as you’re with him for a few days, you see the impact. You see how strong he is, how smart he is, the footwork. He rarely turns it over. And he’s so smart, he reminds me a lot of Andre Iguodala, the way he sees the game.

“Jimmy’s main thing that he wants to do is pass. And you know me, I believe passing is the key to the game, I really do. We’ve always had good passing players on our most successful teams, guys who distribute, who see the game, who understand that a good pass, whether it’s an assist or not, unlocks an offensive possession. And a couple good passes on a possession means your defense is set up and the game is flowing and it’s connected. Jimmy does all that. And that’s why we started winning.”

But wasn’t there a better way for Butler than to shoot only 20 field-goal attempts combined in Games 4 and 5 as the Warriors desperately tried to win just one game to extend the series to get Curry back out there for Game 6?

“This kind of reminds me — this topic of, ‘Did Jimmy shoot enough?’ — kind of reminds me of … before LeBron (James) won any championships and he was with Cleveland,” Kerr said. “And he’s passing to open teammates for game-winning shots and they miss and then the next day, it’s like, ‘Why didn’t LeBron take the game-winning shot?’ It’s like, well, because that was the right play and his teammate got a wide-open look, that’s why.

“Every player is unique to himself. I think Jimmy’s an incredible player. But if you want him to score and there’s no spacing around him, which was the case for the last four games of the series without Steph, it’s going to be really hard to score, especially against a guy like (Jaden) McDaniels with (Rudy) Gobert at the rim.”

Kerr said he didn’t need to be won over by Butler after the trade — he’d already gotten big endorsements from Dunleavy, who played with Butler in Chicago years ago, and more immediately, from one of Kerr’s Team USA assistant coaches

“(Heat coach) Erik Spoelstra told me immediately, he said he’s going to be great for you,” Kerr said. “And I know Spo really well from the last couple of summers and I trust him. I believed him and he was right. Within a couple of days of his arrival, Jimmy was so easy to speak with. He reminded me again of Andre, just the basketball intellect but also the interest in the world and perspective and the maturity. It was really fun to get to know Jimmy right away and to see the impact that he had on our team and our locker room.”

Kerr has been meeting with his staff over the last few days and said he anticipates that all of the current coaches will be back next season.

“Our staff was great all year,” Kerr said. “We found a really good groove as the season went along. The new guys, Jerry (Stackhouse) and Terry (Stotts), did a great job and we’ve got a lot of talented young coaches who I think really blossomed this year.”

Moody, who was drafted in the same class as Kuminga, won’t be hitting free agency because, unlike Kuminga, he signed an extension before last season. And there’s no doubt that Moody is a big part of the Warriors’ plans, even after he fell out of the rotation after some tough shooting games in the Houston series.

“Really after the Jimmy trade, he was able to settle into a role that was really comfortable for him and for us — starting, guarding the ball, kind of took on the (Andrew) Wiggins role,” Kerr said. “I think that trade really clarified everything for both Moses and Brandin (Podziemski).

“We’ve got to figure out as a coaching staff how to better prepare Moses for what Houston did, for example, putting (center Alperen) Sengun on him, changing everything in terms of the chessboard, and helping him expand his game so he can play through stuff like that.”

Both Curry and Kerr have spoken recently about their unique relationship after all these years and how much they count on each other as they lead this team. Draymond, for sure, has a key voice on team matters. But over the last few years, it’s become more and more of very valued partnership between Kerr and Curry.

“There’s no coincidence why this has lasted 11 years,” Kerr said. “Steph has been an incredible partner and an amazing guy to collaborate with. He sets the tone culture-wise for everything we do. And we have a great bond. I think we share a lot of the same values as human beings. We share a similar vision of how the game should be played.

“And we look forward to seeing each other every day. So why wouldn’t we keep this thing going? And why wouldn’t we still enjoy this? And that’s the dynamic I saw with (Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan) when I played for four seasons with the Spurs. It was very similar. It was collaborative, it was authentic, genuine love and friendship. A lot of humor, a lot of joy. It’s hard to find that, but Steph and Tim are very similar in that regard. To me probably the two most collaborative superstars, the most easy to work with superstars that I could imagine.”

While Curry, Butler, and Draymond are all signed for two more seasons, Kerr’s most recent extension expires after next season. But he reiterated that he has zero concerns about the situation and is happy to let things happen naturally after next season.

“If they want me back, I’d probably say yes,” Kerr said. “How could I say no to the Warriors and Steph and Draymond? But I’ve also learned that there’s no reason to even consider what’s gonna happen in the next year because none of us have any idea.”

But he’s definitely not setting this up as the final year of his coaching career.

“I love what I do and I’m not sitting here thinking, like, ‘Yeah, I’m wrapping this thing up and I don’t have the energy,” Kerr said. “I’m not thinking that way at all. Again, this is the NBA and my contract is for another year. Let’s put that to bed. I don’t want to have any discussions about my contract for the rest of the year. I just want to go into next year and have a great season and then we’ll re-address it.”