Jonathan Kuminga spent five seasons waiting for the Golden State Warriors to fully commit to him. When they traded him to the Atlanta Hawks at the February deadline, both sides exhaled. The deal sent Kuminga and Buddy Hield to Atlanta for Kristaps Porzingis, ending a saga that had consumed the Warriors’ locker room for months.
On Saturday night, Kuminga faces his former team for the first time since the trade that reshaped both franchises. The Hawks (38-32) host the Warriors (33-37) in Atlanta, and the contrast between the two organizations could not be sharper.
How the Warriors and Hawks Are Trending Since the Jonathan Kuminga Trade
Golden State has lost eight of its last 10 games, including Friday’s 115-101 defeat in Detroit, where Stephen Curry missed his 19th consecutive game with a knee injury. The Warriors have not won back-to-back games since mid-January. “They went 13 straight games with a different unique starting five,” NBC Sports Bay Area’s Dalton Johnson reported.
Atlanta, meanwhile, was riding an 11-game winning streak before Friday’s loss to Houston.
Back in February, the Warriors framed the Kuminga trade as necessary. The relationship between the two sides had deteriorated beyond repair. Kuminga appeared in 20 games and made 13 starts in the 2025-26 season, averaging 12.1 points before being benched.
From late November to late January, he fell completely out of Steve Kerr’s rotation, appearing in just seven of 38 games. When Jimmy Butler III tore his ACL in January, Kuminga briefly returned, only to suffer a bone bruise in his knee days later. The saga culminated in his trade request on Jan. 15, the day he became eligible.
Jonathan Kuminga is playing tonight after not playing last night in what will be his first game against the Warriors @NBCSWarriors
No Kristaps Porzingis
Draymond Green, De’Anthony Melton, Gary Payton II, Quinten Post and Malevy Leons are all questionable
— Dalton Johnson (@DaltonJ_Johnson) March 21, 2026
Kerr has been candid about why it did not work. In an interview with Nick Friedell of The Athletic, he admitted the Warriors were never the right place for Kuminga’s development. “The optimal circumstance for JK when he entered the NBA would have been to go to a bad team,” Kerr said.
“Instead, he came to a championship team. But the way to develop in this league is to play 30, 35 minutes every night, make your mistakes, learn from your mistakes, grow, be able to do it out of the spotlight. And he wasn’t able to do any of those things here, and I recognize that.”
For the Hawks, the gamble was minimal. Porzingis had played just 17 games in Atlanta due to his battle with POTS and was on an expiring contract that they did not plan to re-sign. Acquiring Kuminga gave them a two-month audition for a player whose second-year team option makes him easy to move if necessary.
The early returns have been strong. Kuminga’s 27-point, 7-rebound Hawks debut against the Wizards set the tone. Since then, he has averaged 14.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 2.7 assists over six games while shooting 56.6% from the field.
One highlight of Kuminga’s tenure came during Atlanta’s March 18 win over Dallas, when the 23-year-old drained a 75-foot heave at the third-quarter buzzer. It was the sixth-longest made shot in NBA history since 1997-98 and the longest in Hawks franchise history.
Steve Kerr and Mike Dunleavy Jr. Address the Trade as Kuminga Thrives in Atlanta
Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. has been less effusive. Asked if he had watched Kuminga since the trade, Dunleavy said: “I haven’t watched anything yet. We’ve been really busy with stuff here in a myriad of different ways.
He added that Kuminga is “a good basketball player when he plays the right way.”
In a later interview on “95.7 The Game,” Dunleavy acknowledged what went wrong. “The key in all this I’ve learned is you have to have buy-in from the player, and you have to have buy-in from the organization. There’s buy-in on both ends. And that wasn’t fully met if I’m looking back on it. And that’s on both sides.”
Kerr defended his broader philosophy when questioned about the Warriors’ inability to develop lottery picks. “Grown-ups win championships,” he told the same program, invoking a phrase from his days playing under Phil Jackson.
The comment landed poorly among fans watching Kuminga thrive elsewhere while the Warriors sit in 10th place in the Western Conference, clinging to play-in hopes with $193 million in injured salary.
The Hawks are already discussing a long-term deal. According to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, there is “mutual interest” for Atlanta to decline Kuminga’s $24.3 million team option and negotiate an extension. Kuminga told Fischer that helping construct a lasting contender is “the goal.”
Saturday’s matchup arrives at a difficult time for Golden State. Curry remains out. Butler is done for the season. Al Horford, Seth Curry, and Draymond Green have all missed recent games.
The Warriors are in free fall while Kuminga’s Hawks are ascending. Sometimes it feels as though the game itself writes the revenge.
