Jonathan Kuminga continues to have the NBA's most delusional agent

· Yahoo Sports

FILE: Jonathan Kuminga of the Atlanta Hawks drives to the basket against the Golden State Warriors during the second quarter at State Farm Arena on March 21, 2026, in Atlanta. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

Last week, Jonathan Kuminga - the former No. 7 overall pick by the Golden State Warriors - ended his first stint in unrestricted free agency by agreeing to a two-year, $12 million deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves. The deal includes a player option on the second season, allowing Kuminga to reenter free agency if he chooses.

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Almost immediately, Kuminga and his agent, Aaron Turner, were criticized for the deal. After all, it was only one year ago when the Warriors reportedly discussed offering Kuminga two different three-year deals - one worth $75 million with a team option on the third year and the other worth $54 million without an option. Turner and Kuminga held firm against their interest in those deals, with Turner doing a media tour saying Kuminga needed to receive a player option to be satisfied.

That dragged all the way to the start of training camp last summer and held up all of Golden State's other moves in the process until, two days into camp, Kuminga finally signed a two-year, $48.5 million deal with a team option. After a promising start to the 2025-26 season, Kuminga ultimately fell out of the Dubs rotation entirely and was traded to the Hawks for Kristaps Porzingis at the trade deadline. (That also led to all the behind-the-scenes drama from his Bay Area stint.)

Kuminga had his moments in Atlanta, including in an upset playoff win over the Knicks, but the Hawks declined his team option and sent him to the unrestricted free agency that he and Turner were so thirsty to get to. Turner had even set the stakes rather clearly in an interview with the San Francisco Standard after Kuminga's Warriors deal last October.

"This is what's funny to me. Everybody's like, ‘Aaron f-ked up.' I'm like, hold on. Did I fumble something?" Turner told the Standard. "Because fumbling would mean like next year, if JK is making $10 million a year, you could say I fumbled by not taking [three years for $75 million]. You can't say I fumbled because I didn't fumble anything yet."

Last week, Turner clearly fumbled something: Kuminga went from that potential $25 million-a-year deal to making just $6 million next season - less than even the $10 million Turner said would count as a "fumble." His way to spin this was … yet another media tour.

First up was a story in the Athletic on Friday, where Turner was interviewed and said money "did not play a role" in Kuminga's decision to sign with Minnesota over reported interest and offers of more money from the Lakers, Blazers and Bulls.

That same day also saw Turner do a 20-minute on-camera interview on the "Run It Back" show on FanDuel TV's YouTube channel. Turner repeatedly tried to push back at social media reports that Kuminga had turned down a five-year, $150 million offer because the Warriors never offered it, at one point saying, "you don't turn down five years, 150 [million] if you can get it." He also called last summer the "weirdest negotiation of all time" and referenced the yearslong tension surrounding Kuminga between Warriors coach Steve Kerr and Dubs owner Joe Lacob, long known to be one of Kuminga's biggest supporters.

But most absurdly, Turner took a question about whether he should've accepted the largest offer Kuminga did get - three years, $75 million - and spun an answer about the next free agency window.

"If you've paid attention to JK's recruiting saga over the last few years, those teams that have been trying to sign-and-trade for him - Sacramento, Chicago - these teams have a lot of money for him," Turner said. "The game board is set very, very well for JK for 2027."

After that, Turner joined Kevin O'Connor of Yahoo Sports for his eponymous podcast, which dropped on Monday. He once again said he was doing the interview to try to correct what he called a "massive misinformation cycle" about his client and the $150 million deal.

Of course, there still is the volume of criticism toward himself over Kuminga's deal. O'Connor opened the podcast with a brutally stark introduction of Turner, one that had the agent visibly uncomfortable as the insider read out backlash from others.

In an effort to defend himself, Turner directly referenced the money in the deals Kuminga didn't sign with the one he just did - and tried his own version of spin on basic arithmetic.

"If you look at the math right now, the reality is, OK, if he would've taken the 2+1 (two years plus a team option) deal, he'd be $18 million down going from this year," Turner said. "But he's already secured $6.5 million more for next year, so he's really only down $11.5 million in guaranteed money. And the two-year concept would've had a team option, this has a player option. A lot of people will tell you a player option is [valued] between 10 and 15 million. It's hard to exactly value it, but there is a big value to a player option.

"So with that math, you really could say, like, is he even down? Well, the answer to this is now he's in a situation where he can be where he wants to be, go play basketball, enjoy playing with, being in the moment, and if he plays well, we'll see where this ends after this year. But realistically, he's not really forfeited much. And if you think about the [team option] flipping to the [player option], if you put a value on that like I do as an agent, an optionality, I would make an argument he hasn't forfeited anything."

Meanwhile, anyone with a simple understanding of math would make an argument he very clearly did.

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This article originally published at Jonathan Kuminga continues to have the NBA's most delusional agent.

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