“I’m told the Phoenix Suns and the Sacramento Kings are two teams that have made concrete offers with the Warriors over the last week or so,” ESPN’s Shams Charania recently reported. With the presence of such “concrete offers”, it is inevitable that Jonathan Kuminga might soon exit the Golden State Warriors. It could potentially be a welcome relief, since the team and the restricted free agent have reportedly remained unaligned on a potential deal to keep him with Golden State. As new reports reveal, Kuminga had another team on the radar, but his agent’s efforts could not bear any fruit.
NBA insider Jake Fischer dropped some intriguing breadcrumbs on a recent episode of Bleacher Report’s Insider Notebook. While trade rumors continue to swirl, Fischer shed light on one of the bigger talking points around Jonathan Kuminga: the money. There was buzz about Kuminga turning down a $30 million average annual value offer in early bird extension talks with Golden State last fall. But his agent, Aaron Turner, fired back on Twitter, firmly denying those claims—insisting they never rejected such a number. That figure, however, still seems to be the target range Kuminga’s camp is eyeing.
And while the Warriors continue weighing offers, it turns out Kuminga’s camp had its own ideas. According to Fischer, Turner was actively exploring a potential sign-and-trade with the Chicago Bulls. The idea was to package Kuminga and Josh Giddey into a deal that worked financially for both sides. But despite initial outreach, that plan never gained traction—and talks fizzled before they could turn serious.
“If Josh Giddey was willing to take a certain number that Jonathan Kuminga’s side was trying to manufacture as a complicated sign-and-trade that would have gotten both those players paid, I think that deal could have gotten done. But Giddey’s in his own situation,” Jake Fischer reported on Insider Notebook.
Chicago was expected to offer Giddey a $30 million-per-year extension, but that hasn’t materialized—likely due to the Bulls’ hesitation to commit that much. Meanwhile, Golden State has shown similar restraint with Kuminga, offering closer to $60–80 million over three or four years per reports. The forward’s camp, however, is holding firm on a minimum $90 million guarantee. That fundamental gap in valuation—both in annual salary and contract length—has become the biggest roadblock to a deal, forcing all talks, including the proposed Giddey-Kuminga sign-and-trade, to grind to a halt.
“To my understanding, though that deal hasn’t really made any progress, didn’t make much progress as much as Chicago has had interest in Jonathan Kuminga, dating back to, you know, past trade conversations with Golden State and the Bulls talking about Zack Lavine and Nicola Vucevic” said Fischer.
“But to my latest understanding, I don’t think there is any further development between the Bulls and Kuminga on a sign and trade. I think it’s pretty quiet for Kuminga altogether. If anything, to my latest knowledge, it seems like Kuminga and Golden State are going to be finding more likely than not a short-term agreement for him to go back to the Warriors. I do think that no matter what the final contract details are, years, average annual salary, whatever, I think it’s going to be important for both sides, that his deal remains trade eligible for next season”.
This is a developing story.
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