The Golden State Warriors have plenty of reasons to be happy for how they have started the 2024-25 season. After losing Klay Thompson in free agency, the Warriors have reloaded their depth, with Buddy Hield doing his very best Thompson impersonation, while the team’s defense is back to being one of the most suffocating in the entire association. Through the first 14 games of the season (in which they’ve only lost three), they are the only team in the NBA to be in the top-five of both offensive and defensive rating.
But this is not to say that the 2024-25 season has gone exactly according to plan for the Warriors. A lot of things may have been going right, but some players haven’t yet hit the level that the team expected out of them heading into the 2024-25 season.
In particular, the likes of Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski, whom the Warriors decided to keep after entertaining the possibility of trading for the likes of Lauri Markkanen or Paul George, have not yet built off of their impressive 2023-24 campaigns. And there is no doubt that this turn of events will be rather disappointing for a Warriors team that had high hopes for the two especially considering how much they mean to the team’s future.
Who is the bigger Warriors disappointment: Jonathan Kuminga or Brandin Podziemski?
It’s hard to pinpoint just one of Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski as the most disappointing Warriors player thus far this season. It all depends on one’s perspective, perhaps. Kuminga was expected to take a larger scoring role for the Dubs after he averaged 16.1 points per game last season, while much has been made out of Podziemski’s “untouchable” status that gave the Warriors pause in trade talks.
But from a bigger point of view, Kuminga stands out as the bigger disappointment of the two. The 22-year-old forward is currently in the fourth season of his career, and it’s clear that he hasn’t quite earned the good graces of head coach Steve Kerr throughout his stint with the Warriors.
For starters, Kuminga is an iffy fit in the Warriors’ offense. He loves to handle the ball and go one-on-one, which has its place in the Warriors’ offense, but not at the expense of the ball and player movement that the team prioritizes. There is a sense that the ball stops whenever Kuminga gets a touch, and it’s not as if he’s making up for this by scoring the ball at an efficient level or by doing multiple other things on the basketball court.
It took just three games for the Warriors to bench Kuminga; the line of thinking at first was that if Kuminga stayed in the starting five amid Stephen Curry’s injury, their spacing would be very much cramped. But even upon Curry’s return, Kuminga hasn’t gotten back his starting spot.
Kuminga has been playing better as of late, but relative to expectations, he is not quite at the level the Warriors hoped he would reach. There were many who believed that the 22-year-old could make a run for a spot on the All-Star team, but that dream appears to be dead for now.
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This is not to say that Podziemski hasn’t been disappointing. In fact, a guy deemed untouchable in trade talks has to be averaging more than 8/4/3 on putrid 37/21/60 shootiung splits. The 21-year-old’s confidence looks completely shot; he is hesitating even on open looks, and he’s preferring to keep the ball moving instead of taking a more proactive scoring role.
Lindy Waters III and Buddy Hield have overtaken Podziemski on the depth chart, as the Warriors have preferred the spacing that those two provide over the 21-year-old’s more well-rounded contributions. But at the very least, it’s clear what Podziemski can bring to the table; he is a fighter on defense, and he is also active in crashing the glass — all while being a perfect, unselfish fit in the Warriors’ offensive system.
If Podziemski’s shots start to drop, then it shouldn’t be long before Kerr and the Warriors entrust him with more minutes. Thus, there seems to be a clearer path for Podziemski to get a bigger role, especially after De’Anthony Melton’s season-ending knee injury.
Meanwhile, Kuminga has to be better defensively and drastically improve his feel for the game for the Warriors to give him back his starting spot, which is looking unlikely to happen at the moment. And with this being a contract year for Kuminga, he has to step it up soon, or else he could be the next Warriors lottery pick of the past five years not to stick around with the team for the long haul.
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