Grading Warriors' Trade Landing Porzingis for Kuminga and Hield

The Golden State Warriors traded Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield for Atlanta Hawks 7'1" big Kristaps Porzingis on Wednesday, per ESPN's Shams Charania.

Below, we'll grade the trade from the Warriors' point of view.

Grading the Trade

To put this grade into perspective, we need to go down the Jonathan Kuminga memory lane.

During the 2023 playoffs, at the tail end of Kuminga's second season, Stephen Curry had to give a pre-Game 7 speech for his teammates to, as The Athletic's Marcus Thompson put it, lock in and put their feelings aside.

Thompson reported that the message was directed at Kuminga, Jordan Poole and others "who might've been unhappy for reasons such as playing time and role."

The Warriors probably should have traded Kuminga that offseason, but instead they gave him his biggest role yet, and he responded with his best season yet, averaging 16.1 points per game for the 2023-24 season.

To that point in his career, the Warriors reportedly could have used Kuminga as a centerpiece of a trade for Pascal Siakam or OG Anunoby, but they kept him instead.

Then during the 2024-25 season, Kuminga regressed and got hurt in January. The Warriors should have traded him then, but they acquired Jimmy Butler without including Kuminga, and they seemingly chose not try to find a Kuminga trade partner in the few hours remaining before that trade deadline.

This was an especially big misstep because when Kuminga returned, Steve Kerr said he didn't fit well with Butler.

That set up this last offseason. Kuminga clearly wanted out, but as a restricted free agent, he had no control over leaving. Any team could have signed him to an offer sheet, but the Warriors would have had the option to match it to keep him.

In the end, the Warriors rejected sign-and-trade offers for Kuminga and signed him to a two-year, $46.8 million contract with a team option in the second year. The contract was perfectly set up to be appealing to suitors, but the Warriors needed to keep Kuminga happy for the next three months to preserve his trade value.

That did not happen, and Kuminga finished his Warriors tenure playing just two of Golden State's last 23 games.

To go through all of that just to get Porzingis, who is on an expiring contract and is often injured or sick, is disappointing.

Surely the Warriors could have gotten a better, more reliable player under contract for at least next season had they offered a Kuminga-and-draft-picks package to sellers around the league.

Kuminga was a great salary-matching piece for the Warriors to make an impact trade. He might have been their last realistic chance to make an impact trade in the Stephen Curry era. But the Warriors seemingly chose not to risk giving up some of their future assets to help Curry, a choice they have made far too often.

Porzingis is a great fit with Draymond Green in Golden State's frontcourt. Green plays his best with a big who can shoot threes and protect the rim, and Porzingis does both. The Latvian should also provide an immediate lift to a franchise that was reeling after Jimmy Butler's season-ending ACL tear.

I was pro moving Kuminga for anything decent, and Porzingis is, at worst, decent.

But ever since he was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome during the 2023-24 season, he hasn't been consistently healthy. He played just 42 games last season, and he's at just 17 this season.

He's also averaging just 24.3 minutes per game. He's been very productive in those minutes— averaging 17.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks—but it's not a good sign that he couldn't stay on the court even with such a low minute load.

If the Warriors lose Porzingis in free agency, they will have gotten nothing out of the Kuminga trade piece for the 2026-27 season, which projects to be their last shot at contention in the Curry era.

But there is a chance they a) use their Bird rights on Porzingis to sign him to a new one-year deal for much less than his current $30.7 million salary and b) stay below the luxury tax line to offer De'Anthony Melton the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception, which he'd likely accept.

If they pull that off, maybe the grade below is too harsh.

But to be clear, it's not so much about Porzingis as it is about a) not trading Kuminga years sooner and b) not getting a bigger fish by attaching picks to Kuminga.

Warriors' Grade: C-