What Does the Lakers Latest Signing Mean for Atlanta and Jonathan Kuminga?

Jonathan Kuminga remains unsigned and is one of the top players on the NBA free agent market. It was a surprise when they chose to decline his $24.3 million team option for the upcoming season and make him an unrestricted free agent, but a reunion with Atlanta has not been ruled out just yet.

Nothing with Kuminga might happen until LeBron James decides to join a new team, but one piece of news did come down yesterday, and it made the Kuminga sweepstakes more interesting.

Lakers out of the running?

The Los Angeles Lakers have been the team that has been connected to Kuminga the most, with reported meetings and Los Angeles trying to sell him on starting alongside Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and being the last piece to the puzzle for the upcoming Lakers team. There has been just one important hangup, though, and that is that the Lakers are running low on space to sign Kuminga.

That only got harder after yesterday. Los Angeles has reportedly signed forward Ziaire Williams to a one-year, $3 million deal and once that signing is made official, the Lakers will have 15 players on their roster, which is the maximum amount you can have in the regular season. The Lakers have been looking around for forwards to add to this roster and settled on Williams.

Free agent forward Ziaire Williams has agreed on a one-year, $3 million deal to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers, sources tell ESPN. pic.twitter.com/peHUxlls6d
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 13, 2026

While this move does fill the Lakers roster, does it mean that they are out of the running for Jonathan Kuminga? Where are the Hawks in all of this?

This does not take the Lakers out of the running to eventually get Kuminga, but the road blocks still remain.

Right now, there are two ways that Los Angeles could acquire Kuminga. One is by way of a sign-and-trade with Atlanta, which the Hawks have reportedly been resistant to doing. The other is that Los Angeles could salary dump players like Jarred Vanderbilt, Dalton Knecht, and/or Jake LaRavia to create more space for Kuminga and then bring him on.

But it still seems the Lakers are having a hard time doing that. Vanderbilt is not going to be a coveted asset with two years left on his deal and while LaRavia and Knecht are at least on expiring deals, there are not a lot of suitors unless pick compensation is involved and the Lakers are light on draft picks right now.

I still think there is a solid chance that Kuminga could end up on the Hawks, but like the Lakers, they are going to need to dump some of their bad contracts to make room for him. Atlanta is at 16 roster spots right now and would need to move two players in order to make room on their roster for him.

While the Hawks front office has done a good job of creating optionality for this team and not having any "bad deals", having over $37 million tied up in Buddy Hield, Corey Kispert, and Zaccharie Risacher is not good asset allocation. Even taking out Risacher, who it seems like Atlanta is intent on keeping, having $23 million tied up in Hield and Kispert next season is not good, considering neither of those players were a fixture in the rotation on a Hawks team that lacked real depth.

I think the Hawks would be better off trying to dump both Hield and Kispert and bringing back Kuminga, but it is unclear if they would be able to move either of those players. While the Hawks are still rumored to be interested in bringing back Kuminga, exactly how interested is up for debate.

This seems like it is going to drag on for a little longer and while the Lakers latest signing does fill up their roster, they are not out of the Kuminga mix if they can move certain contracts to free up the right space.

Add us as a preferred source on Google