Kawakami: The no-quit 49ers, Kuminga in pre-trade limbo, and more bold thoughts

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Four bold thoughts, starting with …

Even if the 49ers had lost at SoFi Stadium, in overtime or before that, this would’ve been a signature moment for a team teetering on the brink of a health crisis.

These were conditions that would’ve given them no chance to win last season — no Brock Purdy, Ricky Pearsall, Jauan Jennings, George Kittle, Nick Bosa … oh, you know the list. You know how it all crumbled last season when the injuries accumulated last fall and winter.

But the 49ers were way too stubborn for that on Thursday. Ferociously stubborn. Folks, this is a crazy stubborn team in all the ways that the 2024 49ers were too fragile.

On Thursday, the 49ers punched the Rams first, jumping out to quick 14-0 and 17-7 leads on a Mac Jones-Kendrick Bourne heater, and they punched the Rams last, securing the 26-23 victory with a massive fourth-down stop in OT.

They’re now 4-1, with victories over each of their division rivals, and all five of those games have come down to the very end, which is usually when the most stubborn team wins.

Which would be the 2025 49ers, most every time.

They should get Pearsall, Jennings, and Kittle back either in nine days when they play in Tampa or a little later. They should get Purdy back in that same timeframe. Brandon Aiyuk maybe soon after that.

But they lost some more players on Thursday, and will keep on losing them, even as other guys return. That’s the way of the NFL and certainly of the 49ers in recent years.

The important part is what they’re showing us this season.

What do we know about this team through five games? We know that Jones, now 3-0 this season substituting for Purdy, is an extremely viable quarterback, and we know that Kyle Shanahan had enough confidence to let him throw it 49 times on Thursday, 41 times in the win over Arizona, and 39 times in the win over New Orleans.

We know that Purdy is going right back into the lineup when his toe heals — no, there’s no QB controversy here — but we also know that Jones’ performance gives the 49ers the chance to let Purdy take as much time as he needs.

We know that Shanahan is still one of the best play-callers in the game and that, as always, he especially revs it up when his team is undermanned and he’s going up against old friend Sean McVay. That’s not a bad card to have in your back pocket two times a year.

And we know that the 49ers defense is far, far better than it was last season because the young players are growing up at warp speed (Mykel Williams was a force on Thursday, especially on the last play) and because bringing back Robert Saleh was the biggest transaction of last spring.

I’ll say it: This defense and this team is earning the biggest opportunity out there for the 49ers. Yes, they’re good enough to get the 49ers’ front office thinking about making a trade for Trey Hendrickson to fill the Bosa void.

You don’t do that if you have a mediocre team. Or a team that has suffered the kinds of injuries that might make it let go of the season. But this 49ers team isn’t letting go of anything.

They’re on a playoff path. They’re not dominant, they still can’t really run the ball, and there are other vulnerabilities. But they’re resilient and they’re winning games.

If it costs a second-round pick to get Hendrickson, that’s not a terrible price to pay for a real shot at winning a few playoff games. Or possibly winning all of the playoff games.

The next few months of Kuminga’s Warriors career might be the final ones, which is not a secret or much of a problem for anyone involved.

Could it get uncomfortable? Certainly. In the NBA, you’re always only one “SportsCenter” alert away from crisis. The Warriors have lived through a few and also were the beneficiaries when things got so messy in Miami that the Heat just had to get Jimmy Butler out of there last February.

But the Kuminga situation is probably more likely to resemble D’Angelo Russell’s time after he arrived in July 2019, when he was essentially there to be a trade chip — and then was sent off in a midseason trade for Andrew Wiggins (and, by the way, the pick that became Kuminga).

Russell amiably did his time, wasn’t very good, wasn’t very bad, and then was gone, almost like he was never really here at all. The Warriors did their part, too, by praising him whenever possible.

After four fitful seasons, Kuminga, of course, is far more entwined with the Warriors’ culture and history than Russell ever could be. And the three-month negotiation to get to his two-year, $48 million (but only one year guaranteed) was definitely full of tension and frustrations.

But Kuminga, like Russell before him, would do himself and his future value no good by causing chaos. The Warriors gain nothing by getting into fights with him, either. He wants to be traded. The Warriors want to trade him. He wants a big contract extension after he’s traded. He wants the Warriors to be motivated by all the valuable things they could get back by trading him.

It’s all very clear.

Butler could wreak havoc and still get a $112 million extension from the Warriors because he’s led two teams to the NBA Finals. Kuminga has talent, but he has nothing close to that value. And if he and the Warriors don’t get along through this limbo period, Kuminga’s value will diminish even more.

What struck me listening to Buster Posey and Zack Minasian at the Giants’ end-of-season presser on Wednesday was that these were all the things a top managerial candidate would want to hear.

I didn’t think it was salesmanship — that’s not Posey’s style, even with this big managerial search in front of him after the firing of Bob Melvin.

I just think that this Giants opening, with these executives, this payroll commitment, and this clear desire to win immediately should more than pique the interest of any top candidate, whether that’s Rocco Baldelli, Nick Hundley, or anybody else.

Obviously, the roster wasn’t good enough to get to the playoffs this season. But as Posey and Minasian gently indicated, it’s probably not that far away — and Posey has certainly demonstrated the ability to take major swings to acquire big-time talent.

Also, as front offices get more and more involved in game strategies, there’s no way Posey will dictate game strategy.

And finally, the accountability is crystal clear: If you win, you stick around, the way Bruce Bochy stuck around with the Giants while winning World Series championships. It’s not politics or super-analytics or anything else. Just winning.

“I most definitely value stability,” Posey said. “I think stability and success are correlated, right? So, a lot of times we’re in a business of production. And if production doesn’t happen, I think you’re going to see more turnover. … It’s our responsibility to create stability through winning.”

It won’t be an easy job. Melvin is a proven leader who absolutely wasn’t coasting this season but couldn’t get it done to Posey’s approval. The next guy might face the same issues or find new ones.

But all competitors appreciate that kind of situation. You win or lose — and stick around or get bounced — based on what you can do, and you’re not likely to get undermined or overruled along the way.

If you spend any time following the WNBA, you will hear and see plenty about the haphazard way the WNBA is run and the misgivings many of the most important players and coaches have about all of it.

Sometimes they’ll say Engelbert’s name, sometimes they’ll just talk generally about leadership and vision. The idea is the same: This league is booming, but the people running it are not up to the task at hand.

Good for Napheesa Collier to be the one who put it all directly with perfect calm but perfect emphasis earlier this week. Basically, she was saying what almost everybody else has been thinking privately: Engelbert and her group of old-school executives are not the ones who should be deciding anything.

It’s not all Engelbert’s fault. The NBA owns a huge chunk of the league and calls many of the shots. The WNBA also ran at a huge deficit for years and only now is emerging as a very lucrative endeavor.

But Engelbert is just too obviously identified as part of the league’s creaky, miserly, narrow-minded past. And if she’s actually more active and forward-thinking than that, Engelbert sure doesn’t have the communication skills to let anyone konw.

It’s also very likely that Engelbert would make things worse if she was more available to the media. I mean, she’s the one who famously and badly mangled Natalie Nakase’s last name while presenting her with the Coach of the Year award. Can you imagine that happening in any other major league?

Or look at it from the league ownership side: Can you imagine a long labor stalemate this fall and winter with Engelbert as the face of management up against Collier, Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, and others?

No, I don’t think that’d be too wise or constructive.

In some ways, Collier and the players have given the WNBA money people a relatively easy out. Get rid of Engelbert, install somebody who actually can communicate with players and the media in an authentic way, and everybody’s positioned for more productive CBA talks and hey maybe even a timely deal to set up a bountiful future.

They’ve all earned it. Well, except maybe for one person.