cpower wrote:HiRez wrote:Kuminga has almost always played better when he's played more minutes, but he needs to figure out how to do this when Steph and Draymond are playing. If he's deferring to Steph, which, of course he has to, to some degree, it sort of neuters his aggressive attacking game. He becomes a bystander on the perimeter. On the other hand, when he's coming off the bench he's not getting the spacing to work with when Steph and Wiggins and Hield are in the game as much, and he can't benefit from Draymond's passing, and that leads to him forcing drives or worse, chucking 3s.
A lot of people won't like this idea but one thing I would like to see tried is to make Kuminga the primary offensive focus (and at times ball-handler) instead of Steph. Kuminga has shown he's pretty good at drive and kick and there's no one in the league more dangerous off the ball than Steph. Kuminga is finding some guys on the perimeter open shots, like Podz and Hield and GP2, but they are clanking those shots where Steph won't as often (Hield probably will come around soon, he's just slumping right now). In other words, have Steph work off Kuminga instead of having Kuminga work off Steph. I know it sounds crazy but Steph is smart enough and skilled enough to adapt to that situation easier than the reverse.
I also have to wonder how much Draymond being in the game with Kuminga hurts him. Not saying Draymond is intentionally excluding Kuminga, but he and Steph have that psychic connection from a decade+ playing together and I think Kuminga gets a little frozen out of that, again relegating him to being an observer instead of a participant. Without Draymond in the game, Kuminga was unburdened and able to focus on getting downhill. Draymond also likes to take the high post position around the foul line to swing the offense, and that might be clogging up driving lanes for Kuminga.
he is avg 1.8 AST and 1.4 TOs...wont be pretty...and I thought we have a TO issue?
It's a concern but the role would be different and the minutes higher, so I don't know those numbers tell us much (also, JK was pretty bad and playing sporadic minutes most of this year). Like Kuminga has been kicking out for 3s a lot to Podz (21.1%), Slowmo (26.5%), and GP2 (18.2%)...Wiggins is the only one who's consistently hitting those shots lately. But if he plays with Steph more, and draws defenders on drives, getting Steph (and Hield) open 3s should pay dividends. And I think Kuminga can limit turnovers if he keeps his dribbling to drives, I don't want him dribbling all over the perimeter. Last night he did a lot of handoff/screen action with Loon at the high post and he was able to exploit it without a ton of dribbling in traffic until he got to the driving part. His handle on those drives does get dicey but last night at least he was able to keep it under control against some pretty long and athletic defenders.
Kuminga's best move this year to me, something that I think is fairly new to his repertoire because I don't recall him doing it much before, is using his speed to get inside where he gets met by the primary rim defender (usually C/PF) and then, instead of trying to go through or over that player, uses his athleticism and long stride to get his hand with the ball around and past the defender, beyond their reach, for a soft lay-in at the rim. You can see him doing that over and over against the Rockets in the above video, but he's also done the same thing this year to some elite bigs like Jokic, Zion, Mobley/Allen. He needs to refine that move, but it's very effective if he can get the ball inside. If the defender doesn't come to meet him and stays at the rim, that's where JK needs to kick out, hit a cutting teammate on the backside, or pull up for a 10-12-footer (still a work in progress, but he shows promise with that shot).
The big X factor is JK's 3-point shot. When he's hitting it, it opens up so many things and he can make the game look easy. I think having a few of those go down early last night helped him on that screening action with Looney. On the nights where his 3 isn't falling, it makes everything more difficult for him and guys can just slough off and pack the paint to cut off his drive lanes, that's where he gets into trouble with his handle, trying to force it through too many bodies and arms.
Take tf over. This would make the Warriors a much more dangerous team. He needs the mentality of "I'm going to dominate every night." He's been the "nice team player" to "make coach happy." At some point, Kerr's gotta let the talent unleash and play through mistakes instead of holding him back with inconsistent minutes.
