SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jonathan Kuminga knows what his primary job will be when he steps on the court with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green come training camp: learn all he can from these superstars with multiple championships.
The Golden State Warriors selected the young forward with the No. 7 pick of the NBA draft on Thursday night after he played last season with the G League Ignite following a 2016 move from his home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“As long as I grow around Steph Curry, Klay, Draymond Green, I feel like my game is going to go from the bottom to the top in a couple months,” Kuminga said. “They're going to always push me, they’re always going to put me in the right situation, and I feel like no matter wherever we end up, we’re ready to compete and win a championship.”
At No. 14, Golden State selected guard Moses Moody out of Arkansas, where he played one season for former Warriors coach Eric Musselman. Moody led the Razorbacks in scoring with an average of 16.8 points — third in the SEC and fourth best among NCAA freshmen.
With the Ignite, a development team for top prospects ahead of the draft, the 6-foot-8 Kuminga averaged 15.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists over 13 games. The 18-year-old Kuminga attended high school in Hillside, New Jersey.
Golden State expects these rookies to be under far less pressure than the young players last season who were forced into larger roles when key players like Thompson were injured.
“We’ll see if these guys can help us," said general manager Bob Myers, who was ready to quickly switch gears to free agency. “... We're going to have to get some older guys we hope in free agency and see if we can get minutes out of these guys.”
Musselman will be eager to see how Moody adapts his game at the next level, offering some quick thoughts on his former player via text message: “He’s a great kid. Really hard worker. Works on his game. Comes from a good family. Very mature. Has a tremendous amount of upside. Elite at being able to get to the free throw line. Very good shot maker.”
The Warriors are eager and ready to welcome back Thompson after he missed consecutive seasons following a surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee suffered during Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals then an operation for a ruptured right Achilles that he injured ahead of training camp last November.
With Curry, Thompson and Green finally back together and healthy, the Warriors fully expect to chase another championship. That kind of run will largely hinge on how Thompson responds after missing two seasons, Myers said, noting: “With a healthy Klay Thompson we’re right there with everybody."
“That team can really do it, and I’m just glad to be a part of a winning program,” Moody said.
Myers can't wait for this group of newcomers to go through a more typical development process: summer league, training camp, no rush to get on the court right away, perhaps some G League experience.
That's a far different scenario than the one faced by No. 2 overall pick James Wiseman last season, when he was pushed into action based on necessity.
“When you draft a player, ideally you put them in summer league. Whoever we draft, we’re going to play in summer league. ... That kind of matters,” Myers said this week. “It’s important to learn our system, and then they go to training camp, and that really matters as a young player. And then you start the season out and you actually have a preseason. Maybe you play four games. Sometimes you just play more. And then you kind of see what you have.”
The 7-foot, 240-pound Wiseman, who played only three college games for Memphis before the Warriors selected him, played in 39 games with 27 starts. He averaged 11.5 points and 5.8 rebounds before undergoing surgery in April to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
