Kawakami: Nakase’s stale referee complaints, Kuminga end game, and more thoughts

Four bold thoughts, starting with …

1. Natalie Nakase’s edginess fuels the Valkyries, but she’s verging on “they’re out to get us” territory with the officials.

Were a few of the fouls called on the Valkyries — particularly the loose-ball bumps in the second quarter of Sunday’s Game 1 easy Lynx victory— a little ticky-tack? Probably. Does Nakase need to fight tooth-and-nail for her team in this rough 1-vs.-8 first-round matchup against the title-favorite Minnesota Lynx? Absolutely.

But the officiating wasn’t among of the top 10 reasons the Valkyries were outclassed after the first quarter in this game and were massive underdogs going into this series — and it wasn’t too constructive for Nakase to spend most of her postgame time complaining that it was.

As Nakase and her staff prepare for a potential elimination Game 2 at SAP Center on Wednesday, they’re likely and rightly focusing on the Valkyries’ inability to match the pace of Lynx backup point guard Natisha Hiedeman and the efficiency and talent of probable MVP Napheesa Collier.

And not the officials. Or at least they shouldn’t be focusing on the officials.

But Nakase made the postgame complaints on Sunday, just like she’s complained about the officiating in so many Valkyries losses in this otherwise enormously positive inaugural season.

It’s traditional coaching gamesmanship, of course, to politick for a friendlier officiating environment. Every good coach does it and should do it. And it’s clear that the Valkyries players are energized by Nakase’s uncompromising, chip-on-shoulder spirit.

A diplomat, she is not. And a diplomat couldn’t have done with Nakase has done this season.

Nakase’s the odds-on favorite to be named the league’s Coach of the Year, because I don’t know if anybody else could’ve lifted an expansion team to the playoffs — mostly, because no previous WNBA coach has ever done it.

Nakase has handled this team beautifully, through the injuries to All-Star Kayla Thornton and Tiffany Hayes, the blossoming of point guard and 2025 WNBA Most Improved Player Veronica Burton, and the partly intentional focus shift to more athletic, bigger (and mostly European) players such as Temi Fágbénlé Janelle Salaün, Cecilia Zandalasini, and Iliana Rupert later in the season — with teenage first-round pick Justė Jocytė coming next season.

But if complaining about officials is your baseline response after every loss, particularly the big ones, you’re quietly giving your players an excuse. You’re letting the opponent know that you’re looking for a way to lose. And you’re setting yourself up for a persecution complex that limits your outlook and almost never sets the stage for championships.

Just ask the Raiders how it’s worked out for, oh, about the last three or four decades.

Year 2 Nakase won’t need to be the exact same coach she was this year — the Valkyries might add a star, which would change a lot of things. If she just drops about 30% of the referee complaints next season, everything will seem even brighter.

2. There really isn’t much more path to tread for the Warriors and Jonathan Kuminga in this prolonged negotiation.

Gradually, fitfully, inevitably, the two sides seem to be eyeing training camp reporting/media day — Sept. 29 — as a natural deadline for some kind of resolution to this long-stalled negotiation. So we’ve seen some movement along that timetable.

The Warriors recently increased their offer to Kuminga, according to ESPN’s Anthony Slater and Shams Charania, from $21.7 million in guaranteed money (for one year) to $48.3 million (for two). That’s a pretty big jump.

ESPN added that Kuminga’s camp has responded with an offer to sign for one year at a negotiable number (above his $7.9 million qualifying offer) that would allow the Warriors to trade him this season instead of Kuminga holding the right to veto all trades. That’s a fairly large potential concession.

I hesitate to make any predictions about this tangled affair. There are emotions and obvious sticking points involved. Simply put, the most logical result was always for Kuminga to be headed elsewhere, but the barriers have been large all summer and remain large — his restricted free agency, the lack of cap space around the league, and Joe Lacob’s determination not to trade him away for less than market value.

But something has to happen in the next two weeks. The Warriors need to officially sign Al Horford, De’Anthony Melton, and probably Gary Payton II and can’t do it until this situation is resolved. Kuminga needs to know what’s happening to start this season.

I’ll circle the middle of next week. The two recent proposals show that neither side is being unreasonable. If there are one or two more concessions, this thing can get settled by then, and I’ll guess that we’ll see Kuminga at media day on Sept. 29.

It’s very late. It’ll be uncomfortable no matter what happens. But there’s no way to make this one comfortable. I think both sides have realized that.

3. Joe Burrow’s serious turf-toe injury is just the latest consequence of NFL owners’ short-sighted, penny-pinching devotion to artificial turf.

Maybe the artificial turf at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium didn’t directly cause the cartilage tear — or turf toe — in Burrow’s left foot on Sunday that will sideline him for most of this season.

But I wonder if Bengals owner Mike Brown is comfortable with that “maybe,” when everyone with any sense understands that the risks are far higher for these kinds of injuries when you refuse to pay for a grass field for your very expensive players.

As Jed York told me a few years ago, it costs about “half a percent of what your roster costs” (about $1 million-$2 million a year) to install and maintain a grass field, like he’s insisted on at Levi’s Stadium. Burrow is signed to a $275 million contract. Brock Purdy is signed to a $265 million contract and suffered a toe injury in Week 1 on Seattle’s artificial-turf field.

See, they don’t call it grass toe. And why would owners skimp on the field when they’ve got so much more invested in their players? I never understand this. The owners mostly keep slapping down these fake turf fields. And we all watch the players get hurt in large numbers.

Of course, there will always be injuries on any surface, grass included, when huge men run fast and crash into each other. The 49ers suffered a slew of them during training camp on their perfect grass practice fields.

But if you’re paying out almost $300 million a year to your players, wouldn’t you pay an extra million or two to keep the injury risks as low as possible? Just so you know you’ve done everything you can to make sure you never see Burrow limping off the field like that?

It’s truly idiotic business. It’s the NFL, where the league rakes in about $10 billion a year just in TV rights but half the league has artificial-turf fields, which exposes all of its valuable assets to greater risk than anybody needs.

For instance, the 49ers emerged from their back-to-back artificial-surface games in Seattle and New Orleans with sadly predictable injury totals: Purdy, George Kittle, Kyle Juszczyk, and Ben Bartch all have or will miss significant time.

It’s avoidable. But half the NFL owners wouldn’t think of it.

“You look at Premier League soccer in Europe, they all play on grass,” Jimmy Garoppolo told me in 2022. “There’s a reason they play on grass. It’s better for the players, it’s healthier for the players, keeps the good players out there.”

FYI, Garoppolo is a backup for the Rams now. Who play at SoFi Stadium. On artificial turf. The 49ers will be there Oct. 2, and we’ll see how many players on both sides emerge unscathed.

4. The 49ers are thrilled with the immediate impact of Robert Saleh in his return as defensive coordinator and also are already worried they’ll lose him to a head-coaching job next offseason.

Even as early as training camp, 49ers executives knew Saleh would get the defense up to speed again, knew they’d win more games because of it, and knew they likely wouldn’t be able to keep him next offseason if all those good things happened.

Since then: The 49ers’ defense closed out the first two games with big sacks and forced fumbles, and the entire league can see what a difference Saleh makes.

I’ve heard that Saleh was open with the 49ers when he came back last January — he definitely wants another shot at head coaching after his uneasy stint with the New York Jets. If the 49ers’ defense keeps playing like this, Saleh will be back at the top of many search lists.

But the 49ers will make a run to keep Saleh. They’ve already committed to paying him at the top of the DC market once his Jets’ contract runs out at the end of the 2026 season, if he’s still here by then.

And they backstopped themselves on this situation last offseason by bringing in longtime coordinator and Saleh mentor Gus Bradley as assistant head coach/defense.

There won’t be a repeat of the 2024 Nick Sorensen experience this year, for sure, and there’s already a coach in place to make sure it doesn’t happen even if and when Saleh leaves.