The Golden State Warriors learned about the outspoken nature of Jonathan Kuminga's agent last year, having gone through a very long, difficult and much discussed restricted free agency process.
The Atlanta Hawks may have moved on from Kuminga at the start of this year's free agency, but they too have been dragged into the ongoing conversation by his now quite controversial agent in Aaron Turner.
Hawks discover Jonathan Kuminga lesson Warriors learned last year
Less than a week since Kuminga signed a two-year, $12.4 million contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Turner has already done two notable media interviews. He first spoke to Run It Back's Chandler Parsons late last week, and has now given more insights to Yahoo Sports' Kevin O'Connor in another interview published on Monday.
Within the podcast appearance, Turner claimed that Kuminga was Atlanta's best player from the moment he arrived after being acquired, alongside Buddy Hield, for veteran center Kristaps Porzingis at February's mid-season trade deadline.
“He was their best player from the moment he showed up in terms of winning impact. He had the best on-off net rating in the regular season and in the playoffs. There are two wins against the Knicks.
Who had the best net rating? These are facts. These aren't opinions," Turner said.
Turner can point to specific numbers to push his argument and claim it as fact, but there's no doubt the Hawks would push against the notion that Kuminga was their best player on a team that featured All-NBA forward Jalen Johnson and the league's Most Improved Player in Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
Aaron Turner's claim doesn't align to Jonathan Kuminga's reality
The biggest issue with Turner's claim is that it simply doesn't align to the reality we've seen over the past two months in free agency. If Atlanta thought Kuminga was their best player following the trade, they would have surely picked up his $24.3 million team option to ensure he remained part of the organization moving forward.
Instead, the Hawks turned down the team option and allowed Kuminga to become an unrestricted free agent. Again, if rival teams believed he had been the Hawks' best player, there should have been calls coming in offering at least the full taxpayer mid-level exception if not more.
Turner's ongoing commentary is enlightening to a degree, but it also serves as a distraction that doesn't help teams or more importantly his client. Perhaps that's part of the reason why both the Warriors and Hawks have moved on from Kuminga in the past seven months, and why some are questioning the impact the former seventh overall pick could have in Minnesota.
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