Drama is where you make it, and in how willing you are to inflate a story past the outer limits of its molecular structure. Take the groundbreaking Curt Cignetti Chipotle story as an example: A series of blogs and memes and sports talk radio segments have been launched around a bland meal, ordered daily from a familiar food chain by someone who happened to win a championship. It is a perfectly reasonable if obviously silly thing, and so obviously not worth caring about that it almost comes around the other side and becomes interesting for how uninteresting it is. There's no reason not to expend some words on it, and also no real reason to do so. Monomaniacs who eat the same thing every day tend to worry their families and friends until something good happens to them, but when that good thing happens, you've got content. As opposed to, say, a worthwhile food review.
And then there is Jonathan Kuminga's ongoing saga with and against the Golden State Warriors, which we have already hashed and rehashed until it looks like the Cignetti meal. After being consigned to first hell and then purgatory, Kuminga is now taking us on a trip through postmodernist comedy.
To review: Kuminga, formerly the future of the franchise a la James Wiseman and Moses Moody, has repeatedly asked for and eventually demanded a trade because he believes the Warriors have deliberately stunted his career. The Warriors say Kuminga is hard to trade because the demand for him by other teams is too modest. He wound up deep into Steve Kerr's doghouse, to the point where the end of the Warriors bench was rezoned commercial so that it could legally include a kennel. Then Jimmy Butler sustained a season-ending injury, and Kuminga was grudgingly returned to the rotation. He scored 20 points in 21 minutes in a loss to Toronto, and then three days later scored 10 in nine minutes in a loss at Dallas. You can see a pattern of decently efficient scoring developing there, and possibly the beginning of a market for a player who didn't previously have one.
And then Kuminga hurt his knee and ankle, and had to leave Thursday's loss to Dallas. The Kumingaissance lasted for 30 minutes and 35 seconds in all. It did end with a trade, but it was with a young girl whose front-row seat he took after his injury, which had been caused by him landing on Brandon Williams' foot on a drive. You can't make this stuff up.
Wait, that's wrong. You absolutely can make it up. In fact, this is almost hack work. The trade deadline is in two weeks, the universe finally gifted Kuminga a pathway out of his permanent DNP-CD status and he rose to the opportunity, only to find out that ... he is no closer to the exit than he was three weeks ago. It's a Hallmark Christmas movie, only without Lacey Chabert, or Christmas.
The injury is not considered serious by people who do not feel Kuminga's pain, but at this point there is no timeline for his return. This is at least in part because his return is in and of itself such a charged issue, albeit on a low enough level that we keep coming back to it with more bemusement than anything else.
We'd be happy explain Kuminga's situation in more detail, but why bother? He and his coach don't get along because his coach wants him to do some things, and Kuminga wants to do other things. In most cases, this is sorted out quickly, especially when you're not a high-salaried player. A player who won't do what the coach wants will sit until he's cut or traded; Kuminga is proof that this can happen even to a former lottery pick who played brilliantly in the playoffs during the previous season. But the Warriors and Kuminga have been at this for two years running now without a resolution, and finally, with a potential way out for everyone in sight, the universe says, "Nahhh, let's let this play out a little longer."
At this point, it would serve both parties involved, and us, just fine if there was no trade at all. If everyone is so committed to this not happening, well, you know there's nothing worse than getting what you want. Still, we have some notes. The broader story needs better writing and less exhausted cliches, first and foremost. At this point, even a trade would border on the aggressively anticlimactic unless Kuminga goes someplace like Oklahoma City or Detroit; no trade puts us into a vortex of who-cares-anymore proximity. Another chunk of stasis, on the other hand, feels both familiar and right. So let's enjoy these next two weeks as an opportunity to see if he and they are up to making the tale even weirder. A person can only dream.
