Three words tell the world that a team is going nowhere — that they are done, over, and dusted:
Players. Only. Meeting.
The Warriors, who are down on bodies and down even worse with their collective vibes, held one before Wednesday’s Christmas game with the Lakers.
They lost that game, even with Steph Curry’s heroics. They lost on Friday, too, albeit without Curry (or Draymond Green) in the lineup.
There’s still ample time for the Dubs, but the players-only meeting remains undefeated in highlighting irreparable ineptitude. And I don’t think these Warriors will be the first team in a long time (if there has been one at all) who solved their woes in a semi-formal, coach-free meeting.
So expect the losing to continue.
Then again, it’s become so commonplace for the Warriors to lose lately that it’s hard to imagine this team pulling out of this tailspin. The Warriors started 12-3 and have posted a 3-12 record since.
Those weren’t sleigh bells and Christmas decorations outside Chase Center — they were alarms and red flags.
Something has to change, and yet this Warriors team is kneecapped by the paradox of mediocrity:
The difference between good enough and truly good is massive.
The difference between good enough and inadequate is minimal.
The Warriors can attest to the latter — the last month-plus is a testament to how fine that line is.
As such, mediocre teams — petrified of making a change that will knock them down a level — never make the bold moves necessary to lift up the team.
And let’s be clear about what we’re discussing here as it pertains to the Warriors:
Either head coach Steve Kerr or 22-year-old forward Jonathan Kuminga needs to go.
That truth has been evident for more than a year now. Kuminga doesn’t want to play Kerr’s style of basketball (I don’t think he can, but Kuminga’s camp prefers that you say he’s better than the system). Obviously, Kerr doesn’t want to play someone who plays outside of his system, which has produced four NBA titles.
And so we have a head coach and a player having a back-and-forth, passive-aggressive spat in the media and beyond, with battle lines drawn amongst the mouth-breathers on social media.
But more importantly, what we have is unattractive, losing basketball.
It’s not going to get any better, either, because neither Kerr nor Kuminga is interested in admitting they are wrong. Neither believes they are wrong.
This is untenable, toxic, and has been toxic for a while. Kuminga’s pending restricted free agency and the laughable gap in contract negotiations this past summer only make the situation more combustible. It’s a credit to both Kerr and Kuminga that this whole situation has proven tame by NBA drama standards.
And yet the Warriors’ front office, led by Mike Dunleavy Jr. with a stronger-than-ever influence from the Lacob family, is petrified to make the big, bold move that could give this team the boost it needs.
They won’t commit the franchise to Kuminga — bold move No. 1 — because they know that would be a disaster, which would start with firing Kerr and be followed by paying Kuminga roughly a quarter-billion dollars.
But they won’t trade Kuminga — the bold-move alternative — because they’re too afraid of what the uber-athletic 22-year-old power wing could become elsewhere.
So, instead of deciding one way or the other and living with the consequences, they’ll settle for passive-aggressive showdowns between player and coach and consistent mediocrity (at best).
I won’t insult your intelligence by saying that Kerr is blameless in this situation—much like Kyle Shanahan in Santa Clara, his idealism is getting in the way of wins.
But the decision between him and Kuminga is so apparent to me that I find it laughable there’s even a debate.
On Friday, Kerr called Kuninga’s career-high 34-point performance “one of the best games I’ve ever seen him play.”
The Warriors lost that game by 10, and that scoreline was far more flattering than the Dubs deserved.
I know what winning basketball looks like. So do you.
Neither of us has ever seen Kuminga play it. And sure, he’s 22, but he’s also been in this league — and in this system — for four years. Saturday will be his 240th NBA game, and despite an outburst like Friday’s, he seems no closer to “figuring it out.”
Yes, Kuminga does just enough to tantalize you into giving him another chance but never enough to convince you he’s worth serious investment.
He’s the kind of player that eats inadequate front offices alive.
This isn’t to imply that the Warriors can get anything of commensurate value back in a trade for Kuminga. As I wrote two weeks ago when the Warriors traded for Dennis Schröder, that was it.
The Dubs made that deal because it was the best they could do this season. Since then, Pat Riley has decreed from on high this week that the Heat won’t trade Jimmy Butler. And while Butler was hardly the only player whose trade candidacy had been discussed in the NBA this season, I wish you the best of luck with any of the alternatives.
It was Butler or bust, and the latter won out, again.
But the Warriors should still jettison Kuminga. It’s strictly an addition-by-subtraction play. He might be the most talented player on the team next to Steph Curry, but so long as he plays on Steph Curry’s team, he’s a square peg in a round hole.
So unless the Warriors want to make this Kuminga’s team and put four corners on all those holes, the answer to what the team should do is obvious: cut your losses, trade Kuminga, and press forward.
Of course, that’s not what the Warriors will do—they’ll be paralyzed by an allegiance to a two-timeline concept that never actually worked, contrary to CEO Joe Lacob’s statements.
They’ll lock in mediocrity through inaction — prioritizing hope over action by avoiding a solution to this team’s true conflict.