Jonathan Kuminga’s first rough preseason night offered the Timberwolves a quick glimpse of the volatility that comes with him.
In Wednesday’s game against the Indiana Pacers, the 6-foot-7 forward went 1-for-9 from the field and never really found a rhythm. He forced a few shots that weren’t there, missed some chances that should have gone down at the rim and from deep, and had a couple of defensive lapses away from the ball.
On one play, Andrew Nembhard even muscled him out. Minnesota still outscored Indiana in the first half while the starters were on the floor, so there’s no reason to spin one exhibition game into a crisis.
But if the goal was to see what a bad Kuminga game looks like, Wednesday made that pretty clear.
That’s the catch with Kuminga: the quiet nights usually aren’t all that quiet. When he’s off, it shows up everywhere.
The shot selection gets loose, the finishing gets shaky, and the mistakes on defense start piling up. He’s inconsistent, and that means performances like this aren’t some far-fetched worst-case scenario once the games count.
For Minnesota, the plan with Kuminga is simple enough in theory. He needs to be an athletic play-finisher first and foremost, with LaMelo Ball helping feed him the kind of looks that suit him best.
That’s the role that makes sense. The problem is that Kuminga can drift into possessions where he tries to do too much and ends up taking difficult, contested looks that stall everything around him.
That showed up against Indiana, and it’s been part of his story before.
The finishing around the rim is another issue. Even with all his physical tools, Kuminga didn’t convert well when he had chances to score through contact on Wednesday.
That matters because Minnesota can’t afford to have him undercut the work of its established pieces, including Ball, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, and Ayo Dosunmu. If he plays like he did against the Pacers, he can end up doing exactly that.
There’s also the shooting piece. Kuminga will be asked to knock down 3-pointers in certain lineups, and that becomes a lot more important if Ball is creating open looks for him.
But his outside shot has been a concern for a while - he’s a career 33.2 percent shooter from deep - and he missed all of his triples on Wednesday. If that part of his game doesn’t come along, Minnesota could run into the same kind of spacing issues that have made the Julius Randle-Rudy Gobert frontcourt difficult at times.
And it isn’t just offense. Kuminga has the tools to be a strong defender, but the consistency isn’t there yet.
His offense can bleed into the other end, and off-ball lapses remain the most common problem. Wednesday brought that right back into view.
None of that changes the basic logic of the move. Minnesota still needed a power forward, and getting Kuminga on a $6 million deal this season is a strong value play.
The upside is obvious. But the Wolves also have to live with the reality that he’s an erratic player, and nights like this are part of the package.
There are ways to manage it. Dosunmu gives them an easy closing option when Kuminga is struggling, and the contract makes it simple enough to trim his minutes if needed. Still, Wednesday served as a clean reminder: the flaws are real, and Minnesota will have to plan around them.
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What puzzled Indiana was the reaction itself, which drew the attention of head coach Rick Carlisle and teammate Tyrese Haliburton. Smith seemed to take it in stride, but the unusual reception added a curious wrinkle to a game that otherwise served as an encouraging early look at the Pacers young backcourt and the way outsiders are already paying close attention to Smiths place in the league. [Read more 🡒]