After leaving Thursday’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks early with an injury to his knee and ankle, Jonathan Kuminga will miss Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves with knee soreness. That will halt his consecutive games streak at two.
Kuminga came back from 16 straight DNP-CDs with 30 points in 30 minutes of play Tuesday and Thursday. Jimmy Butler’s injury opened up a spot for Kuminga in Steve Kerr’s very expansive rotation, and the 23-year-old forward took advantage by providing instant and ample offense off the bench.
(Note: Not a windmill dunk.)
It would have been exciting to see Jimmy Butler play against his old team in a nationally-televised game Saturday afternoon. Failing that, it would have been interesting to see if Kuminga could continue his scoring binge, after averaging 24.3 points in the last four game’s of last spring’s playoff series with the Wolves. Now, America will get to watch Gui Santos and Will Richard try to slow down Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards.
Kuminga mildly hyperextended his knee Thursday, so the team is holding him out. It does not sound like his twisted ankle was serious. There’s an immediate rematch with the T-Wolves Monday, so the Warriors could see Kuminga back on the floor, if only to feature him for their [rumored acquisition](https://marcstein.substack.com/p/my-evening-with-the-warriors) of Andrew Wiggins.
The fear is that Kuminga aggravates his knee issue and is once again injured at the trade deadline, happening Feb. 5. And then we have to keep writing about Kuminga trade rumors for eight more months. Perish the thought.