When Draymond Green signed his new four-year, $100 million contract with the Golden State Warriors last June, Joe Lacob asked him to serve as a mentor for Jonathan Kuminga as an unwritten part of the deal.
“Joe said, ‘I know you’re going to play and lead and all of that, but I need one more thing,'” Green recalled. “He said ‘I need you to take JK under your wing.
“I said, ‘You got my word …To me, that was a condition of the contract.”
During Green’s suspension, he focused on watching Kuminga. Green noticed that Kuminga needed to attack defenses by using his speed and athleticism on drives to the paint.
“He can always jump and get himself out of trouble,” Green said of his advice to Kuminga. “Nobody else is going to be up there with you. Most of us, we’ve got to find angles, and different things to score, but if you get in trouble with anything, just jump.”
“Him watching the games at home, it was him watching film, pretty much, and it actually helped me understand who I am,” Kuminga told ESPN.