Kuminga’s Agent Continues To Defend Handling Of Free Agency

Turner has faced criticism for how he approached Kuminga’s free agencies in 2025 and 2026. While the agent has repeatedly stressed during his various interviews that a rumored five-year, $150MM rookie scale extension offer from the Warriors in 2024 never happened, he has acknowledged that he and his client passed on a three-year offer worth roughly $75MM from Golden State in restricted free agency last year.

The last year of that contract would have been a team option, but the first two seasons (worth about $48MM) would have been guaranteed, meaning Kuminga would have been owed about $24MM this season if he’d accepted Golden State’s offer. Instead, he agreed to a two-year, $12.4MM contract with the Timberwolves that will pay him a little below $6.1MM this season and includes a second-year player option worth nearly $6.4MM.

Speaking to O’Connor (YouTube link), Turner made a convoluted case countering the idea that he cost Kuminga money, arguing that the control the forward regained over his future more than made up for a short-term pay cut.

“If you look at the math right now, the reality is, OK, if he would have taken the two-plus-one (offer from the Warriors), he’d be $18 million down this year, but he’s also secured $6.5 million for next year,” Turner said. “So he’s really only down $11.5 million in guaranteed money.

“And the two-year concept would’ve had a team option. This has a player option. A lot of people will tell you a player option is (worth) between $10, 15 million. It’s hard to exactly value it, but there is a big value to a player option. So, with that math, you really could say, is he even down?

“Now he’s in a situation where he can be where he wants to be, go play basketball, enjoy playing (and) being in the moment. And if he plays well, we’ll see where this ends after this year. But realistically, he has not really forfeited much. And if you think about the team option flipping to the player option – if you put a value on that like I do as an agent, the optionality – I would make an argument he hasn’t forfeited anything.”

Turner made several remarks during his lengthy conversation with O’Connor that raised eyebrows, including insisting that Kuminga was Atlanta’s “best player from the moment he showed up in terms of winning impact” following the mid-season trade that sent him from the Warriors to the Hawks.

“He had the best on/off net rating in the regular season and in the playoffs,” Turner said (YouTube link). “In their two (playoff) wins against the Knicks – these are facts, these aren’t opinions – who had the best net rating? Jonathan Kuminga.”

Kuminga’s +12.2 regular season net rating as a Hawk was technically the best overall mark among the team’s rotation players, and his +8.3 net rating in those two postseason victories over New York ranked first among the six players who logged at least 60 minutes in those games.

However, Turner’s framing is somewhat misleading. From February 24 – the day of his Hawks debut – through the end of the season, Kuminga was tied for fifth among Hawks regulars in net rating, and he ranked third among the team’s rotation players in the postseason, behind CJ McCollum and Onyeka Okongwu.

Here’s more from Turner:

• Discussing Kuminga’s other options in free agency this summer on the Run it Back show (Twitter video link), Turner said the forward seriously considered the Lakers but explained that the need to do a sign-and-trade complicated matters. A contract completed as part of a sign-and-trade must cover at least three years (with no options), and Los Angeles was offering about $12MM annually. Turner viewed that as a below-market long-term deal for a “starting-level wing” and was reluctant to lock in three years of Kuminga’s prime with no “optionality.”
• The Trail Blazers offered two- or three-year structures that would’ve included a player option, Turner added, noting that Portland’s offer was more lucrative than Minnesota’s (Twitter video link). Still, I’d be surprised if the Blazers were willing to go much higher than the Wolves, given that they’re operating just $8.3MM away from the luxury tax line.
• Kuminga’s deal with the Wolves isn’t even technically official yet, but Turner spent part of his appearance on the Run it Back show discussing the options his client could have next summer as a result of his player option (Twitter video link). “On paper, next year for Jonathan Kuminga is a way better free agency year for him,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of teams with money, and if you’ve paid attention to JK’s recruiting saga over the last few years, those teams that have been trying to sign-and-trade for him – Sacramento, Chicago – these teams have a lot of money next year. … The game board is set very well for JK for 2027.” The Kings, who pursued Kuminga a year ago, were cap-strapped and couldn’t offer him more than the veteran’s minimum this summer. But it’s worth noting that the Bulls had a ton of cap room entering the 2026 offseason and used it to trade for Nic Claxton and sign Norman Powell rather than prioritizing Kuminga, though Turner did name Chicago as a team that had some interest in his client.