Draymond Green isn’t hiding how he feels about the way Jonathan Kuminga’s offseason has been talked about.
Kuminga’s future was back in the spotlight this summer after the Atlanta Hawks declined the team option on his contract, which sent him into free agency. He eventually landed with the Minnesota Timberwolves on a two-year, $12.4 million deal, with a player option in the second year. That ended the immediate drama, but it didn’t stop the conversation around how the process played out.
A big part of that conversation has been Kuminga’s agent, Aaron Turner, who has spent recent weeks making podcast appearances to discuss the forward’s offseason. On FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back,” Turner said that putting money ahead of basketball can hurt a player in the long run.
“Money coming before basketball is not how you continue to make more and more money," Turner said. "… Next year is a way better free agency year for him…teams that have been trying to sign-and-trade for him, like Sacramento and Chicago, will have a lot of money."
Turner also spoke about Kuminga’s decision to sign with Minnesota during an appearance on “The Kevin O’Connor Show,” and that’s where Green appears to have drawn the line. On his own podcast, “The Draymond Green Show,” the Warriors veteran pushed back hard on the way Turner framed the numbers.
“This is a tough one for me because I love JK," Green said. "And I’ve met Aaron, a great guy.
But this is not good... Number one, absolutely unnecessary to talk about this man’s pockets on a podcast, ...talking about a guy’s money and how much they lost and what they gained and like talking about somebody’s 11 and a half million dollars, ‘that’s it’… ‘THAT’S IT’?!
This ain’t Monopoly money!”
Green, who has been in the NBA for 14 seasons, has seen enough negotiations to know how these situations usually unfold. He’s also familiar with how agents handle free agency, which makes his reaction easy to understand when he felt Turner went too far.
For Golden State, though, the bigger takeaway is that Kuminga’s situation is another sign of how messy things have become between the sides over the past few years. With Kuminga now elsewhere in the league, the Warriors and Green can move on and watch the next part of his career play out.
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