The Golden State Warriors have been decimated by injuries this season. Draymond Green has dealt with nagging back and calf injuries, while Stephen Curry has missed games as he nurses knee tendinitis.
With the Warriors veterans starting to show their age a little, you’d expect the Warriors youngsters to step up in their veteran's place, but that hasn't been the case. Brandin Podziemski has missed 12 games but will return from an abdominal injury on Thursday against the Chicago Bulls, and Jonathan Kuminga has missed the last nine games with a severe ankle injury.
Steve Kerr has provided a daunting update on Jonathan Kuminga
The Warriors are praying that their veterans and youngsters can get healthy soon, but unfortunately, Steve Kerr just gave a disappointing update on the status of Kuminga after his injury earlier in the month.
Kerr had an interview on 95.7 The Game where he was asked about Kuminga’s injury progression. Kerr said, “He’s nowhere close to being ready to play”. This isn’t a huge surprise as the first update on the Kuminga injury had him being re-evaluated in three weeks -- which was about two weeks ago.
Kerr continued to say, “(Kuminga’s) progressing, but it was a pretty bad ankle sprain, and he hasn’t been on the court yet or anything, but he’s getting rehab every day, and he’s doing strength stuff and he’s on the bike, so he’s doing as well as possible.”
Since Kuminga hasn’t even started any on-court activities, it seems like Warriors fans will be waiting more than three weeks to see their young forward take the court. This is rough news for the Warriors. Not only was Kuminga just starting to hit his stride right before going down, but other injuries have the Warriors’ frontcourt completely depleted.
Green, Kuminga, and Kyle Anderson are all out at the moment and they are the first three power forwards on the Warriors depth chart. This has forced Kerr to shift Moses Moody to the power forward spot and play deep bench players like Gui Santos. Moody is severely undersized to play the four, and Santos has played only 42 games in his NBA career to date.
That being said, the bright side is that both Santos and Moody have been solid in their minutes as “next man up” candidates. Santos dropped 16 points (4-of-5 from three) in the Warriors loss to the Kings and grabbed five rebounds, while Moody has scored double digits in four straight games and is 11-for-25 from three over that stretch.
Still, if Kuminga isn’t going to return soon the Warriors will continue to struggle. The Warriors are outside even the Play-In Tournament at the moment and desperately need a spark. Hopefully it's not too late by the time Kuminga returns and provides it.