“Kuminga was prepared for the conversation. He knew management wanted to ding him for missing a team-requested event and alert him that someone around him was taking too much food from the family room.”
The line appears three paragraphs into Anthony Slater’s definitive ESPN autopsy of the Jonathan Kuminga–Warriors divorce. It arrives with almost no context, offered as matter-of-factly as a box score.
This is not normal. This is not how functional organizations treat foundational young players. This is how you signal, whether intentionally or not, that the relationship has become so frayed.
“Everybody was right. Everybody was wrong. Everyone’s to blame,” one team source told Slater. “Nobody won.
A Vision Mismatch From the Start
The food meeting was not an aberration; it was the logical endpoint of a five-year misalignment that began the moment Kuminga was drafted seventh overall in 2021.
“Let your basketball people make basketball decisions,” one team source told Slater, a pointed critique of Lacob’s involvement .
Kuminga, caught between an owner who believed in him and a coach who didn’t, spent five years searching for footing that never materialized.
The Agent Question and the Contract Standoff
By the summer of 2025, the philosophical divide had metastasized into active dysfunction.
One common reply among league sources was that Lacob would never agree to it .
Turner, for his part, fired back after the trade. “The Warriors shorted Jonathan Kuminga and we’re long on Jonathan Kuminga,” he said. “Clearly the bet was made. Game on. Let’s find out who is right.”####
The Final Act: Quitting, or Being Quit On?
The Jan. 2 game against Oklahoma City is now widely viewed as the point of no return.
Kuminga, however, ruled himself out with back soreness.The coaching staff and front office viewed this as “a sign he’d quit on the team.” Kuminga, in turn, was already operating as if the Warriors had given up on him and were using the Oklahoma City matchup “as a recipe to shame him” .
The Warriors, meanwhile, had spent years trying to develop a player they never fully believed in. Every setback confirmed their skepticism. Every frustration validated their reluctance to commit.
“Nobody won,” the team source said. And they were right .