The Lakers' $20 Million Question and the Kuminga Stalemate

The Empty Chair

Picture the Los Angeles Lakers practice facility. The squeak of sneakers, the rhythmic thud of leather on hardwood, and in the corner, an empty chair where the greatest player of his generation once sat. LeBron James is gone, and with him goes a gravitational pull that defined an entire era of Lakers basketball.

Now imagine a different player walking into that void. A young player, all raw arms and restless legs, looking for a place to land. That player is Jonathan Kuminga, and the Lakers are doing everything in their power to make him see Los Angeles as home.

The offer sits on the table: two years, $20 million.

For a franchise that once chased superstars with blank checks, this feels modest. Almost humble. But it also represents something else entirely about the Lakers' current reality and their vision for what comes next.

The Gamble

This is what the Lakers have become in a post-LeBron world: a team that hunts for value in the margins, that sees potential where others see inconsistency.

Kuminga is 22 years old, a walking bundle of athletic possibility who has tantalized and frustrated in equal measure. Last season, split between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks, he averaged 12.2 points and 5.6 rebounds while shooting 33.3% from three-point range. In 16 games with the Hawks specifically, he averaged 12.3 points on 47.6% field goal shooting and 34.6% from 3-point, pulling in 5.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 0.9 steals in 22.1 minutes per game.

Those numbers whisper potential rather than scream star. But the Lakers see something the stat sheet obscures.

They see a 6-foot-8 forward with a 7-foot wingspan who can guard multiple positions, who flashed moments of genuine brilliance during the 2023-24 season when he averaged 16.1 points per game for Golden State. They see a player who, freed from the structured ecosystem of the Warriors and the transient stop in Atlanta, might blossom with consistent minutes and the license to make mistakes.

The Lakers have remained in contact with Kuminga's agent, Aaron Turner. They have increased their original offer. They have, according to league insiders, even dangled something more precious than money: a potential starting spot.

The Arithmetic of Desire

Here is where the story gets complicated.

Last season, Kuminga earned upward of $23 million. The Lakers are offering $10 million per year. That is pay cut territory, and for a young player whose camp believes his best basketball lies ahead, accepting less than half your previous salary requires a particular kind of faith.

Faith that the system will use you right. Faith that the opportunity will translate to production. Faith that one breakout season in Los Angeles, playing alongside Luka Doncic with shots suddenly available, could reset your market value entirely.

The Lakers know this. Their pitch is not really about the $20 million. It is about the platform.

With James gone, the Lakers offense lost its primary architect. Someone must take those shots. Someone must fill those minutes. Someone must become the third option that a competitive team desperately needs alongside Doncic and whatever else the roster becomes.

Kuminga, in theory, could be that someone.

The Waiting Game

But Kuminga remains available. Still looking. Still waiting.

This is the part of free agency that fans rarely see: the quiet weeks when nothing seems to happen, when agents and executives exchange phone calls and proposals and counterproposals, when a player works out alone in some gym while his future hangs in the balance.

Rob Pelinka, the Lakers' President of Basketball Operations, continues to sell his vision. According to ESPN's Anthony Slater, Pelinka has remained in touch with Kuminga's agent, Aaron Turner, subtly improving the Lakers' offer in recent days while reiterating Kuminga's importance to what the Lakers are building around Doncic—a likely starting role and what the opportunity could do for his career. The Lakers have even held a virtual meeting with Kuminga early in free agency, with Pelinka and head coach JJ Redick pitching him on a vision of being a high-minutes wing next to Doncic and Austin Reaves in a spacious on-court environment conducive to his skill set.

They have signaled seriousness not just through the offer itself but through the willingness to enhance it.

Yet the gap between what the Lakers can offer and what Kuminga's camp believes he deserves remains a chasm neither side has figured out how to bridge. Slater notes that Kuminga is still waiting for potentially improved deals, which could come as offseason dominoes continue to fall.

A breakout season from Kuminga could raise his value around the NBA.

That sentence is the entire bet compressed into fourteen words.

The Bigger Bet

What the Lakers are really pursuing is not just a player. They are pursuing a restoration project—a chance to take a lottery-level talent whose career arc stalled in the Warriors' win-now culture and transplant him into a situation where growth is the primary expectation.

Golden State was always an awkward fit for Kuminga. The Warriors' system demands instant processing, precision passing, and defensive discipline that takes years to internalize. Kuminga's instincts are more primal: drive, leap, finish, repeat. He was a Ferrari asked to navigate school zones.

Atlanta was a layover, not a destination. Kuminga arrived there on Feb. 5 in a deal that sent him and Buddy Hield to the Hawks while Kristaps Porzingis went to Golden State. The Hawks declined his $24.3 million team option on June 29, making him an unrestricted free agent—but a return to Atlanta on a friendlier deal remains possible, though ESPN reports that "a reunion isn't being actively discussed."

Los Angeles offers something neither situation could: the combination of a genuine need for his specific skillset and the platform that comes with wearing purple and gold. The Lakers need wings. They need athleticism. They need someone who can absorb the minutes and shots that LeBron's departure left behind.

If Kuminga starts and produces, the $20 million becomes a preamble to something significantly larger. His camp knows this. The Lakers know this. The negotiation is really about how much risk each side is willing to absorb.

The Stalemate

For now, the offer stands. Two years. Twenty million dollars. A starting spot. The LeBron vacuum.

Kuminga waits.

The Lakers wait.

And they are not the only ones at the table. The Cleveland Cavaliers have also emerged as a team interested in Kuminga's services—a LeBron-sized elephant in the room that complicates whatever Pelinka is trying to build. There's familiarity there, too: Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson coached Kuminga in his first three NBA seasons as an assistant under Steve Kerr with the Warriors. Though the Cavaliers' primary target remains LeBron James himself, their interest in Kuminga adds another layer to an already tangled pursuit.

The Sacramento Kings have also re-entered the picture. According to ESPN, the Kings—who were heavily involved in the Kuminga sweepstakes a year ago—checked back in with Kuminga to gauge his interest. A deal there would likely require a sign-and-trade, and Sacramento has been hesitant to discuss those plans.

With more suitors circling, Kuminga's patience may not be stubbornness so much as strategy.

Somewhere in between, a deal waits to be made or to fall apart. Pelinka continues working the phones, exploring ways to free up cap space, searching for the number that turns maybe into yes.

This is modern NBA team-building: not the splashy pursuit of established stars but the patient cultivation of developmental bets. Not the chase for certainty but the embrace of calculated risk.

The Lakers are betting that Kuminga's best basketball is ahead of him. Kuminga's camp may be betting that someone else will pay more for the same conviction.

In a league where the gap between promise and production defines careers, the $20 million question lingers like a shot floating toward the rim, waiting to fall through or clank away.

For the Lakers, the post-LeBron era begins with a pursuit. Whether that pursuit ends with Kuminga in purple and gold or with the Lakers turning elsewhere will tell us something about both franchises and the player caught between them.

The empty chair is still there. Someone will eventually sit in it. Whether that someone is Jonathan Kuminga remains the question that hangs over this entire offseason.

For now, the gym stays quiet, the offer stays open, and both sides keep waiting for the other to blink first.

Updated: 2026-07-09 — Added details on Cavaliers' Atkinson-Kuminga connection and Kings' renewed interest, Hawks' trade timeline and option decline, Kuminga's Atlanta stats, and Austin Reaves as part of Lakers' pitch.
Update:
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