Draymond Green Thinks Chris Paul Will ‘Completely Unlock’ Jonathan Kuminga

The Golden State Warriors faced a decision this offseason of whether to double down on their longtime core group or to shift their attention more towards the future. If there were any doubt they’d pick their championship core, that was settled when they traded Jordan Poole and picks for Chris Paul to try and make another run at a title.

Adding Paul, who has started to show his age but is still an effective point guard, and then re-signing Draymond Green set up the Warriors to be a contender again this season, but they’ll still need some of their younger players to pop in order to fill out a roster capable of winning another championship. Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga are the last of the recent lottery picks still on the roster, and with Donte DiVincenzo leaving in free agency and just a general need for more production from their bench, those two could prove to be critical.

While there was chatter prior to free agency Kuminga could be traded, as of now he’s still a Warrior and there haven’t been any recent rumblings about them shopping him. On the latest episode of Podcast P, Green joined Paul George to talk about Chris Paul’s addition and what he thinks that brings. Green noted a few things like Paul’s ability to bring variety and anchoring the second unit to let Green and Steph Curry play more minutes together, but he also thought Paul would do wonders for Kuminga, noting he’s excited to learn from Paul how to bring the most out of young guys.

“I think he brings a couple things. Number one, I thought last year — and Steph said this in his press conference, we ran out of variety and what I mean about variety is in a team you need to have a variety. Our team last year didn’t have a variety of ways to score and I think CP adds another thing to the menu to address the topic of a variety of ways to score. CP plays totally different than Steph, totally different than Klay, totally different than myself and Jordan Poole. I also think last year, Steph and I got split up a lot and me and Steph together we’re dangerous. Our minutes got split up a bunch because our second unit couldn’t figure it out and in turn I got put into the second unit to help stabilize things. That’s like 15 less minutes a game we’re together. Well now, CP can anchor that unit, and I think that is a big thing to helping unlock our team again.

“I’ll tell you one more thing that I think it unlocks and I look forward to learning this from him — I think Chris Paul will completely unlock Jonathan Kuminga and his growth. CP is great with young guys. Deandre Ayton looked like a bust before Chris came to Phoenix. No disrespect but more of a compliment to CP but people didn’t know what Deandre Ayton was gonna turn out to be and suddenly he became an All-Star level player. So I think what he will do for Jonathan Kuminga and unlocking him is huge. Absolutely huge. And I look forward to learning that from him.”

Green rather famously hasn’t been great at bringing along young players — part of the reason Poole is gone is he frustrated Green to the point Draymond punched him in practice, creating a cloud that hung over the team all season. He also hasn’t meshed particularly well with the other youngsters, and it’s interesting to hear him talk about how he’s excited to learn from watching how Paul handles young players and balancing tough love with encouragement. Paul also has an incredible touch on the court of knowing how to keep everyone involved, which should help Kuminga’s mentality since he has been frustrated with his role with the Warriors. Playing with a point guard like Paul on the second unit who is more likely to go a bit out of his way to get Kuminga the ball in his spots — similar to how he would often feed Ayton early in games — could help as much as anything.

[via Podcast P presented by Wave Sports & Entertainment]