Aaron Turner, the Warriors striker, Jonathan Kuminga striker, told ESPN that Kuminga was ready to take the qualification offer of $ 8 million unless Golden State improves his current offers.
“There are many advantages,” said Turner in an interview with the podcast “The Hoop Collective”. “He wants to choose where he wants to go. So QO is real for sure.”
The Warriors presented Kuminga, 22, with three separate executives, as ESPN reported earlier this week. The most lucrative is an agreement of $ 75.2 million over three years with a team option in the third season. It guarantees Kuminga 48.3 million dollars in the first two seasons.
He is also offered an agreement of $ 45 million over two years with a team option in the second season and an agreement of $ 54 million over three years without options. Kuminga, at this point in negotiations, refused everything that is put to him. He asks the Warriors to transform the team option into a player option and he will sign it.
The Warriors refused to put a player option in any offer in Kuminga and refused to comment where the negotiations are.
“If [the Warriors] You want to win now, if you want a guy who is happy and just treated that is a large part of this team, we think that, in the future, you give him the player’s option, “said Turner.” You lose a little of this commercial value [giving that up]. But if it is here and now, you give him that. You do not get a perfect affair, but you get a pretty good deal and he feels respected about what he gets and we all go to something else and we care to win, helping Steph [Curry]. “”
The Warriors are the only NBA team this summer that has not signed a free agent. Less than two weeks before the training camp, they only have nine players on their list. The expectation is that they will sign the veterans al Horford, of the anthony Melton and Gary Payton II once the Kuminga Domino will fall, but the negotiations were in a blocking of three months.
If Kuminga signs the qualification offer, he would give up more than $ 40 million in guaranteed money over the next two seasons, but that would grant him his free agency without restriction next summer and give him an inherent clause without exchange – a high price to control his own destiny.
“If JK wants to take it, it increases, right?” Said Turner. “We talked about it. You are not exchanged. You will have a free agency without restriction [next summer]. People will say: “Well, Aaron, there will not be 10 or 12 teams [with cap space]. Very good, there will be six teams with a ceiling space for the top clear wing of the under 35s on the market. So there are a lot of advantages. “”
Kuminga spent the summer to explore its market, including large -scale opinions from those outside the Warriors organization. The Kings of Sacramento (three years, between 63 million and 66 million dollars) and the Phoenix Suns (four years, between 80 and 88 million dollars) were the most aggressive in the pursuit of Kuminga. They were unable to bring together sign and exchange offers to encourage warriors to abandon Kuminga.
He would return to a probable bench role with the Warriors, behind a Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and Horford Frontcourt.
Golden State Managing Director Mike Dunleavy Jr. told journalists before the draft in June that the team was in a “good place” with Kuminga, but that did not lead to an agreement.
“I would like to understand something as soon as possible. It would be great,” said Dunleavy. “But I also recognize with a limited free agency, these things can drag a little time. I think we feel fairly comfortable with whom JK is as a player and what he can do for our organization, and it is a main free-aging priority.”
The owner of the Warriors, Joe Lacob, flew to Miami to meet Kuminga in August to try to resolve the dispute of the contract, but he continues to drag deeply in September. The Kuminga side is the Warriors who give him a player option on two -year or three years contract offers. They would also be willing to sign the two -year agreement with the Warriors in this $ 45 million range if they let him keep the inherent clause, allowing him to say where he then plays.
But the warriors did not give in to this subject either, which asks Kuminga renounces the clause without exchange. Turner said Kuminga would be willing to conclude a team option agreement if the Warriors brought the number per year around 30 million dollars or take current offers on the table if they include a player option. Otherwise, they threaten to take the qualification offer, which would land its commercial value.
“In two years, if you want to keep it, you will have its bird rights [even if you give him a player option]”Said Turner.” You treat him well and show him the plan, so maybe you keep it. [The player option contract] is not perfect, but I don’t think anyone can get everything he really wants. If you ask JK, he wants Jalen Green’s agreement. He doesn’t understand that. He wants Jalen Johnson’s agreement. You don’t understand that. “”
