ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Thursday Today’s NBA The Phoenix Suns and the Sacramento Kings offer “concrete offers” for restricted free agent forward Jonathan Kuminga’s Golden State Warriors.
Jonathan Kuminga reportedly signed a new deal effortlessly
Charania said the free agent deadlock “could last longer than this month” since Kubinga was not interested in the Golden State offer.
Charania added: “He did tell me, although he is absolutely in a hurry to reach a deal with the Warriors right now and he is not accepting their current offer.”
Restricted free agents rarely accept qualified offers, which is a one-year contract offer that gives the team the right to match any quotation list and allow players to go public again in the future.
If the Kuminga chooses a qualified offer, a 6-foot-8 wing will earn $7.9 million in one season. He can also veto any trade with Golden State before becoming an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Qualified quotes will make Kubinya below market value
For the Warriors and Kubinga, a qualified offer will be useless as it will put him well below his market value, and Golden State may have a hard time working for a competitive roster.
The Golden State’s intention is to sign Kubinga so they can trade him, but a qualified offer will make the situation even more difficult because his salary is not enough to match other contracts.
Stephen Curry ($59. $6 million) and Jimmy Butler ($54.12 million) are the Warriors’ two highest-paid players, with a salary of $113.7 million in 2025-26, each Spotrac.
Moses Moody ($11.57 million) is the only other player in the roster, making over $10 million.
Then there is buddy Hield, who will make $9.21 million next season.
NBA executives think Kuminga situation could damage teams
According to Fred Katz of Track and Field, the site recently worked on 16 people at the front desk of their competitors, asking what they think would constitute a “fair” contract for Kubinga.
Responses from those anonymous executives ranged from $17 million to $25 million in average annual value. According to Katz, the average annual average value in the poll is $20.4 million.
Per NBA insider Jake Fischer, Kuminga requires at least $25 million per season. A league executive explained why a qualified offer would be the wrong move.
“If he accepts a qualified offer, the Warriors are from a team-building perspective because they need to get him into a deal and they can trade him. That’s the key to them,” the executive said.
Kuminga is the seventh-ranked draft pick in the 2021 draft, with an average of 47 games per season (10 games) to score 15.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 24.3 minutes per game.
