Three Potential Downsides To The Atlanta Hawks Not Bringing Back Jonathan Kuminga

Jonathan Kuminga's recent decision to sign a two-year, $13 million dollar contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves shouldn't be a surprise to the Hawks. Minnesota was able to offer him the starting PF job, a chance to compete for a championship alongside a team led by Anthony Edwards and the flexibility to opt out of his contract next season for a big payday or remain with the team. While Atlanta may have been able to offer the money, they couldn't offer the role or minutes Kuminga likely wanted.

Deciding not to pay Kuminga as part of a new contract is fine. It doesn't make the move to trade Kristaps Porzingis a bad one and it likely won't be the difference between Atlanta making and missing the postseason. However, acting like Kuminga brought nothing to the team would be inaccurate.

In the 16 games he played as a Hawk, he averaged 12.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists on 47.6/34.6/70.2 shooting splits. The stats don't jump off the page, but the Hawks did perform much better with Kuminga on the court. Over the 297 minutes he played in the regular season for Atlanta, the Hawks were 15.5 points better by net rating and had an excellent defensive rating of 101.6. In the playoffs, those numbers didn't hold up to the same extent. The Hawks had a defensive rating of 115.9 across 134 playoff minutes for Kuminga. However, it is worth noting that the Hawks' defensive rating rose to an abysmal 127.0 when he was off the floor.

Therefore, Kuminga's time with Atlanta was neither disappointing nor excellent. He played solid defense and cleaned up plays on offense, but didn't show a lot of noticeable growth to earn a new contract. Still, the Hawks are going to miss some of the things that Kuminga brought to the roster.

Small Forward Foil

Hawks, Atlanta Hawks, NBA, Kuminga, Jonathan Kuming — Feb 24, 2026; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Hawks forward Jonathan Kuminga (0) controls the ball against the Washington Wizards during the second half at State Farm Arena. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

When looking at the players Kuminga most effectively defended last season, his best defensive performances came against Bilal Coulibaly, Jerami Grant and Cameron Johnson. He held all three of these players to a TS% under 40% and under 15 points per 75 possessions. All of those players are small forwards who are either quick or perimeter-based players. Conversely, he struggled a lot more when he had to guard bigger forwards like Aaron Gordon or any backcourt options.

Kuminga is such an effective defender for those types of players because he's both fast enough to chase them around the perimeter and strong enough to prevent them from getting high-quality looks inside the arc. While Atlanta did add another solid perimeter defender in Lu Dort, Dort specializes in guarding No. 1 options, especially on the wings. He doesn't have Kuminga's speed and that could be a problem for the Hawks.

Offensive Rebounding

Hawks, Atlanta Hawks, NB — Mar 25, 2026; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Atlanta Hawks forward Jonathan Kuminga (0) grabs the rebound over Detroit Pistons forward Paul Reed (7) in the first half at Little Caesars Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Kuminga's ability to make himself useful on the offensive glass was extremely helpful for a Hawks team that generally sucked at getting offensive boards. Atlanta finished 18th in offensive rebounds per game, 20th in offensive rebounding percentage, 20th in second-chance points and 14th out of 16 postseason teams in OREB%. The Knicks were obviously a mismatch in that area, but it's a weakness of the roster that the Hawks haven't really solved.

Jock Landale is a decent rebounder on the offensive glass - he pulled in 2.7 offensive rebounds a game last season (74th percentile among centers). Still, his role as a backup center limits the amount of impact he can make in that regard. Conversley, Kuminga averaged 1.4 offensive rebounds a game (85th percentile among forwards) and grabbed 6.5% of team misses (90th percentile). That's a skillset the Hawks are banking on Asa Newell and Zuby Ejiofor to fill, but it would have been nice to have Kuminga around in order to give them time to develop in that regard.

Free Throw Creation

To be clear, Jonathan Kuminga isn't an elite free-throw shooter. His FT% of 72.4% was in the 24th percentile among all forwards and while there's a chance it improves with time, the Hawks aren't going to be a worse FT shooting team because he left.

However, he did produce free throw chances at an above-average rate. His free throw rate of 0.36 free throws per FGA was in the 91st percentile among all forwards and it helped the Hawks slow the game down. It is also hard to find a lot of above-average FT creators on Atlanta's roster. Kuminga had a higher free throw rate than Jalen Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Dyson Daniels. Therefore, it is imperative that the Hawks' scoring options figure out how to get better at drawing contact this season.

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