The Minnesota Timberwolves have already made their first big call on Jonathan Kuminga, and it may not age well.
Minnesota signed Kuminga to a two-year, $12.4 million deal, and he is reportedly set to open as the team’s starting power forward. On paper, that gives the Wolves a clean-looking starting five: LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Kuminga, and Rudy Gobert.
But the early promise of a starting job is exactly where the risk begins.
Kuminga’s time with the Golden State Warriors was marked by a desire to start. He believed he should be in the regular lineup, and that tension was part of what helped sour his relationship with the team. Now Minnesota has handed him the role he wanted, but that also creates a problem if the fit doesn’t hold up.
The Wolves brought Ball in to work alongside Edwards, and the rest of the roster is supposed to be built around giving those two the best possible support. Kuminga might not be the ideal answer there.
His career so far has also shown a clear pattern: he has wanted more touches and more responsibility than he’s been given. In Minnesota, that’s going to mean accepting a role-player role, and that has not been something he has handled especially well to this point.
That’s where the danger lies for the Timberwolves. If Kuminga struggles in the role or the lineup needs a shakeup, Chris Finch may eventually decide that he’s better suited to come off the bench. But that would mean walking back a promise already made, and Kuminga has not liked being a bench player up to this point.
If Minnesota gets to that point a couple of months into the season, the move could become a mess fast. And because the Wolves already told him he would start, that decision may hit even harder.
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