As I review the most gold-blooded performances of the Golden State Warriors’ 2025 calendar year, you already knew Jonathan Kuminga was going to come up. There’s a specific kind of heartbreak reserved for watching someone show you exactly who they could become, then watching that possibility slip away like water through your fingers.
Game 3 against the Timberwolves on May 10, 2025, might be that moment for Jonathan Kuminga and the Golden State Warriors. Western Conference Semifinals. Minnesota’s suffocating
defense. Steph Curry sidelined with injury. The kind of playoff atmosphere where young players typically shrink. Kuminga walked into Chase Center and dropped 30 points on 11-of-18 shooting against one of the best defensive teams in basketball. For one night, the future felt real.
But don’t take my word for it. Let my teammate Brady’s quote from after that game remind you of how well he played:
What an absolutely dynamic performance from Kuminga. He was the Warriors best player on Saturday and, were it not for a burst from Edwards in the fourth quarter, Kuminga would have been the best player in the game … and it would have been a game the Warriors won.
He brought the right mentality. He was relentless attacking the rim, constantly looking to finish in the paint or draw contact. He only really took jump shots when it was late in the clock, or he was wide open. He made some really good passes, and he played an absolutely sensational defensive game.
The Warriors season is on the line on Monday. Don’t be surprised if Kuminga starts and plays 40 minutes.
Grade: A+
Post-game bonus: Best plus/minus on the team.
Now Kuminga literally can’t get into the rotation.
Here’s what makes this story haunting: In five years, we’re going to look back at Game 3 and it’s going to mean one of two things.
Possibility One: The Receipt. Kuminga is averaging 24 and 8 for Charlotte in 2029. He’s made two All-Star teams. Every time the Warriors visit, someone pulls up the Game 3 clip and asks why Golden State gave up on a 23-year-old who dropped 30 in the playoffs. The relationship after the 2022 championship went from hopeful to unsalvageable, forcing a trade to wherever Kuminga finally gets the developmental runway he needed. And everyone who watched Game 3 remembers thinking: “He can really do this.”
Possibility Two: The Ghost. Game 3 was the outlier. The one perfect night where everything clicked, but never consistently. Kuminga bounces around the league averaging 12 points off benches in Memphis and Indiana. Game 3 becomes the sad story about unfulfilled potential, about a player with all the tools who could never put them together, who went 11-for-18 one night and 1-for-10 the next. In this version, the Warriors saw the inconsistency, the turnovers, the defensive lapses. Game 3 becomes the cruelest kind of memory: the reminder of what could have been if talent matched consistency.
The tragedy is we won’t know for years. Right now, on New Year’s Eve 2025, with Kuminga out of the rotation entirely and the trade deadline approaching before winter turns to spring, we’re living in the moment before the fork in the road becomes clear.
Something broke between May 10 and now. Whether it was the player, the organization, or the fit between them, I don’t know. But Game 3 sits there like evidence at a crime scene. Either Kuminga becomes an All-Star somewhere else and Game 3 becomes the receipt proving the Warriors gave up too soon, or he fades into a journeyman role and Game 3 becomes the beautiful lie we all wanted to believe.
Both possibilities hurt. Both feel possible. And that’s the tragedy.
OR HE DOESN’T GO ANYWHERE AND HE STAYS BALLING WITH THE DUBS FOR ANOTHER RING.
May 10, 2025. Jonathan Kuminga: 30 points, 11-of-18 shooting, 36 minutes of playoff basketball. Remember that game. Because in five years, it’s either going to make you furious or make you sad, and right now we have no idea which. Happy New Year, Dub Nation ;).
